“Why, I reckon they all seem to be white, so far as I can see—­oh!  I declare, I remember now—­”

“The storekeeper told us those bad men were niggers!”

“Right; that’s what he said.  Still, these may be another lot, connected with your friend with the sorrel-top!” declared Maurice, who died hard.

“Rats!  You know now just as well as I do that yonder is the sheriff and his posse!  Perhaps they think we’re some of the riffraff they’ve been chasing, and that’s why they keep aiming their blamed old guns at us that way.  Hadn’t we better hold up our arms, Maurice, and give ’em to understand that we surrender?  Some fool might think it fine to take a snapshot at us and explain afterwards he thought we meant to fight!”

“That’s right, Thad; a clever idea.  So up you go, my boy.”

Maurice, as he spoke, allowed the gun to fall at his feet, and elevated both hands as high as he could get them.  Thad hastened to follow suit, and it might be he unconsciously cast his eyes upward at the same instant, as though eager to see just how his chum held his.

A sudden spasm seemed to shoot through the frame of Thad, and his companion heard him give utterance to an exclamation; but being so intensely interested in the coming of the runners, who were now very close, he made no comment, nor did he ask questions.

The men quickly closed in around them.

Maurice realized that what his chum had guessed must surely be the truth.  He even decided which of the six was the sheriff; for the storekeeper at Morehead Landing had described this individual to him, so that he might know him if they ever met.

“Hello, Mr. Jerrold!  Glad to meet up with you, sir.  Mr. Stallings told us you were out after some game.  But he said it was black meat you wanted, not white,” sang out Maurice, cheerily; and when he chose to make himself agreeable the young Kentuckian could win over nearly any man.

“Seems like yuh know me, youngster.  Who-all be yuh, anyhow, and what yuh doin’ thisaways.  I’d like tuh know right well?”

But the sheriff had at the same time made a motion to his men, and all show of weapons vanished.  He knew that there was no need of violence in this case.

Maurice quickly told him who they were, and that, desiring to see George Stormway, bearing good news from the North, they had been directed along the road by the friendly storekeeper.

“Don’t s’pose now, boys, yuh seen anything o’ a pair o’ black sheep?  We done skeered ’em up outen the swamp, an’ when our dawgs gits heah we s’pect tuh track ’em down once foh all,” observed the sheriff, now apparently ready to shake hands with the two voyagers.

“No; we haven’t met a single person, black or white, on the trail; but we have reason to believe that there’s a man hiding around here who wanted to waylay us and rob us.”