Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/65

 "Ay, you mean the affair of that scoundrel, Frampton. Yes, I know all about it; but we're on his trail, and shall soon make him sweat for his audacity, the blasted rebel."

"Do you know that his wife is dead?" asked one of the countrymen, in a tone subdued to one of simple and inexpressive inquiry.

"No&mdash;and don't care very greatly. It's a bad breed, and the misfortune is, there's quite too many of them. But we'll thin them soon, and easily, by G&mdash;d! and the land shall be rid of the reptiles."

"Yes, captain, we think alike," said Singleton, familiarly&mdash;"we think alike on that subject. Something must be done, and in time, or there will be no comfortable moving for a loyalist, whether in swamp or highway. These rascal rebels have it in their power to do mischief, if not taken care of in time. It is certainly our policy to prevent our men from being ill-treated by them, and to do this, they must be taken in hand early. Rebellion grows like joint-grass when it once takes root, and runs faster than you can follow. It should be seen to."

"That is my thought already, and accordingly I have a good dog on trail of this lark, Frampton, and hope soon to have him in. He cannot escape Travis, my lieutenant, who is now after him, and who knows the swamp as well as himself. They're both from Goose Creek, and so let dog eat dog."

"You have sent Travis after him, then, captain?" inquired a slow and deliberate voice at Huck's elbow. Singleton turned at the same moment with the person addressed, and recognised in the speaker his own lieutenant, the younger Humphries, who had got back to the tavern almost as soon as himself. Humphries, of whose Americanism we can have no sort of question, had yet managed adroitly to conceal it; and what with his own cunning and his father's established loyalty, he was enabled, not only to pass without suspicion, but actually to impress the tories with a favourable opinion of his good feeling for the British cause. This was one of those artifices which the necessities of the times imposed upon most men, and for which they gave a sufficient moral sanction.

"Ah, Bill, my boy," said Huck, turning as to an old acquaintance, "is that you! Why, where have you been?&mdash;haven't seen