Page:The Campaign of the Jungle.djvu/216

188 she made the two guards let me out, just to get her the water."

"And the water hasn't arrived yet," said Major Morris, laughing.

"No, the water hasn't arrived yet," answered Barton Brownell. "As soon as I reached the spring I dropped the pail and ran for all T was worth, and hid in the brush along the mountain side. I stayed there two days and nearly starved to death. Then they hunted me out, and I received this wound. But I escaped them and made my. way through the jungle and over the rice-fields to here, and here I am."

"You say there were twenty-eight prisoners all told," cried Ben. "Did you ever hear anything of my brother, Larry Russell?"

"Larry Russell? " repeated Barton Brownell, thoughtfully. "To be sure I did. He is a sailor from the Olympia, isn't he?"

"Yes! yes! And was he with you?"

"He was, at first. But he wasn't when I left. They moved some of the prisoners away, and he was among them. So he was your brother? That beats all, doesn't it—to think I should fall in with you in such a place as this!"