Here the idiot boy encountered them, now coming forward boldly, and staring in the face of the captive with a confidence which he had never known before.  He felt that his fangs were drawn; and his survey of the person his mother had taught him so to dread, was as curious as that which he would have taken of some foreign monster.  As he continued this survey, Rivers, with a singular degree of calmness for such a time, and such circumstances, addressed him thus:—­

“So, Chub, this is your work;—­you have brought enemies to my home, boy!  Why have you done this?  What have I done to you, but good?  I gave bread to your mother and yourself!”

“Psho!  Chub is to have his own bread, his own corn, and ’taters, too, and a whole jug of whiskey.”

“Ah! you have sold yourself for these, then, to my enemies.  You are a bad fellow, Chub—­a worse fellow than I thought you.  As an idiot, I fancied you might be honest and grateful.”

“You’re bad yourself, Mr. Guy.  You cursed Chub, and you cursed Chub’s mother; and your man burnt down Chub’s house, and you wanted to shoot Chub on the tree.”

“But I didn’t shoot, Chub; and I kept the men from shooting you when you ran away from the cave.”

“You can’t shoot now,” answered the idiot, with an exulting chuckle; “and they’ll keep you in the ropes, Mr. Guy; they’ve got you on your back, Mr. Guy; and I’m going to laugh at you all the way as you go.  Ho! ho! ho!  See if I don’t laugh, till I scares away all your white owls from the roost.”

The outlaw looked steadily in the face of the wretched urchin, with a curious interest, as he half murmured to himself:—­

“And that I should fall a victim to such a thing as this!  The only creature, perhaps, whom I spared or pitied—­so wretched, yet so ungrateful.  But there is an instinct in it.  It is surely in consequence of a law of nature.  He hates in proportion as he fears.  Yet he has had nothing but protection from me, and kindness.  Nothing!  I spared him, when—­but—­” as if suddenly recollecting himself, and speaking aloud and with recovered dignity:—­

“I am your prisoner, gentlemen.  Do with me as you please.”

“Hurrah!” cried the urchin, as he beheld the troopers lifting and securing the outlaw upon the horse, while one of the party leaped up behind him—­one of his hands managing the bridle, and the other grasping firmly the rope which secured the captive; “hurrah!  Guy’s in the rope!  Guy’s in the rope!”

Thus cried the urchin, following close behind the party, upon his mountain-tacky.  That cry, from such a quarter, more sensibly than anything besides, mocked the outlaw with the fullest sense of his present impotence.  With a bitter feeling of humiliation, his head dropped upon his breast, and he seemed to lose all regard to his progress.  Daylight found him safely locked up in the jail of Chestatee, the occupant of the very cell from which Colleton had escaped.