“Chub’s mother was good to Chub, and Mr. Guy mustn’t say nothing agin her.”

“But, Chub, will you not come and live with me?  I will give you a good rifle—­one like this, and you shall travel everywhere with me.”

“You will beat Chub when you are angry, and make him shoot people with the rifle.  I don’t want it.  If folks say harm to Chub, he can lick ’em with his fists.  Chub don’t want to live with you.”

“Well, as you please.  But come in and look at my house and see where I live.”

“And shall I see the strannger agin?  I can lick him, and I told him so.  But he called me Chub, and I made friends with him.”

“Yes, you shall see him, and—­”

“And Miss Lucy, too—­I want to see Miss Lucy—­Chub saw her, and she spoke to Chub yesterday.”

The outlaw promised him all, and after this there was no further difficulty.  The unconscious idiot scrupled no longer, and followed his conductors into—­prison.  It was necessary, for the further safety of the outlaws in their present abode, that such should be the case.  The secret of their hiding-place was in the possession of quite too many; and the subject of deliberation among the leaders was now as to the propriety of its continued tenure.  The country, they felt assured, would soon be overrun with the state troops.  They had no fears of discovery from this source, prior to the affair of the massacre of the guard, which rendered necessary the secretion of many in their retreat, who, before that time, were perfectly unconscious of its existence.  In addition to this, it was now known to the pedler and the idiot, neither of whom had any reason for secrecy on the subject in the event of their being able to make it public.  The difficulty, with regard to the two latter, subjected them to no small risk of suffering from the ultimate necessities of the rogues, and there was a sharp and secret consultation as to the mode of disposing of the two captives; but so much blood had been already spilled, that the sense of the majority revolted at the further resort to that degree of violence—­particularly, too, when it was recollected that they could only hold their citadel for a certain and short period of time.  It was determined, therefore, that so long as they themselves continued in their hiding-place, Bunce and Chub should, perforce, continue prisoners.  Having so determined, and made their arrangements accordingly, the two last-made captives were assigned a cell, chosen with reference to its greater security than the other portions of their hold—­one sufficiently tenacious of its trust, it would seem, to answer well its purpose.