“Whoop!” cried Cavendish, delighted at this recognition of Yancy’s love for the boy, and he gleefully smote the austere Mahaffy on the shoulder.  But Mahaffy was dumb in the presence of the decencies, he quite lacked an interpreter.  The judge looked back at the house.

“Mine!” he muttered.  “The clothes he stands inthe food he eats—­miine!  Mine!”

CHAPTER XXX

THE BUBBLE BURSTS

At about the same hour that the judge was hurling threats and insults at Colonel Fentress, three men were waiting ten miles away at the head of the bayou which served to isolate Hicks’ cabin.  Now no one of these three had ever heard of Judge Slocum Price; the breath of his fame had never blown, however gently, in their direction, yet they were preparing to thrust opportunity upon him.  To this end they were lounging about the opening in the woods where the horses belonging to Ware and Murrell were tied.

At length the dip of oars became audible in the silence and one of the trio stole down the path, a matter of fifty yards, to a point that overlooked the bayou.  He was gone but a moment.

“It’s Murrell all right!” he said in an eager whisper.  “Him and another fellow—­the Hicks girl is rowing them.”  He glanced from one to the other of his companions, who seemed to take firmer hold of themselves under his eye.  “It’ll be all right,” he protested lightly.  “He’s as good as ours.  Wait till I give you the word.”  And he led the way into an adjacent thicket.

Meantime Ware and Murrell had landed and were coming along the path, the outlaw a step or two in advance of his friend.  They reached the horses and were untying them when the thicket suddenly disgorged the three men; each held a cocked pistol; two of these pistols covered Murrell and the third was leveled at Ware.

“Hues!” cried Murrell in astonishment, for the man confronting him was the Clan’s messenger who should have been speeding across the state.

“Toss up your hands, Murrell,” said Hues quietly.

One of the other men spoke.

“You are under arrest!”

“Arrest!”

“You are wanted for nigger-stealing,” said the man.  Still Murrell did not seem to comprehend.  He looked at Hues in dull wonder.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Waiting to arrest you—­ain’t that plain?” said Hues, with a grim smile.

The outlaw’s hands dropped at his side, limp and helpless.  With some idea that he might attempt to draw a weapon one of the men took hold of him, but Murrell was nerveless to his touch; his face had gone a ghastly white and was streaked with the markings of terror.

“Well, by thunder!” cried the man in utter amazement.

Murrell looked into Hues’ face.

“You—­you—­” and the words thickened on his tongue becoming an inarticulate murmur.