ed
himself in the middle of the rowboat and laid hold on the oars when his
foot struck against something soft on the bottom of the craft, partly
under the seat in the stern. It was his bundle, he thought, containing
the spoiled clothing that he had worn in the swamp, and which he
intended to sink in mid-stream. His nerve was shaken, however; he could
not restrain a sudden exclamation--this must have seemed discovery
rather than agitation. It was as a signal for premature action. He was
suddenly seized from behind, his arms held down against his sides, his
hands close together. The bundle in the stern rose all at once to the
stature of a man.

The touch of cold metal, a sharp, quick click,--and he was captured and
handcuffed within the space of ten seconds.

A terrible struggle ensued, which his great strength but sufficed to
prolong. His wild, hoarse cries of rage and desperation seemed to beat
against the sky; back and forth the dark riparian forests repeated them
with the effect of varying distance in the echoes, till all the sombre
woods seemed full of mad, frantic creatures, shrieking out their
helpless frenzy. More than once his superior muscle sufficed to throw
off both the officers for a moment, but to what avail? Thus manacled, he
could not escape.

Suddenly a wild, new clamor resounded from the shore. In the dusky
uncertainty, a group of men were running down the bank, shouting out to
the barely descried boatmen imperative warnings that they would break
the levee in their commotion, coupled with violent threats if they did
not desist. For the force with which the rowboat dashed against the
summit of the levee, rebounding again and again, laden with the weight
of three ponderous men, and endowed with all the impetus of their
struggle, so eroded the earth that the waves had gained an entrance,
the initial step to a crevasse that would flood the country with a
disastrous overflow. As there was no abatement of the blows of the boat
against the embankment, no reply nor explanation, a shot from the gun of
one of the levee-watch came skipping lightsomely over the water as
Hoxer was borne exhausted to the bottom of the skiff. Then, indeed,
the sheriff of the county bethought himself to shout out his name
and official station to the astonished group on shore, and thus,
bullet-proof under the aegis of the law, the boat pulled out toward
the steamer, lying in mid-stream, silently awaiting the coming of the
officer and