te; the mule-rider a mulatto.

The last is a little behind; the distance, as also a certain air of
deference--to say nothing of his coloured skin--proclaiming him a
servant, or slave.

Still further rearward, and seemingly careful to keep beyond reach of
the hybrid's heels, is a large dog--a deer-hound. The individuals of
this second cavalcade will be easily identified, as also the dog that
accompanies it. The three whites are Charles Clancy, Simeon Woodley,
and Ned Heywood; he with the tawny complexion Jupiter; while the hound
is Clancy's--the same he had with him when shot down by Richard Darke.

Strange they too should be travelling, as if under an apprehension of
being pursued! Yet seems it so, judging from the rapid pace at which
they ride, and there anxious glances occasionally cast behind. It is
so; though for very different reasons from those that affected the
freebooters.

None of the white men has reason to fear for himself--only for the
fugitive slave whom they are assisting to escape from slavery. Partly
on this account are they taking the route, described as rarely travelled
by honest men. But not altogether. Another reason has influenced their
selection of it while in Natchitoches they too have put up at the
Choctaw Chief; their plans requiring that privacy which an obscure
hostelry affords. To have been seen with Jupiter at the Planter's House
might have been for some Mississippian planter to remember, and
identify, him as the absconded slave of Ephraim Darke. A _contretemps_
less likely to occur at the Choctaw Chief, and there stayed they. It
would have been Woodley's choice anyhow; the hunter having frequently
before made this house his home; there meeting many others of his kind
and calling.

On this occasion his sojourn in it has been short; only long enough for
him and his travelling companions to procure a mount for their journey
into Texas. And while thus occupied they have learnt something, which
determined them as to the route they should take. Not the direct road
for Nacogdoches by which Colonel Armstrong and his emigrants have gone,
some ten days before; but a trail taken by another party that had been
staying at the Choctaw Chief, and left Natchitoches at an earlier
period--that they are now on.

Of this party Woodley has received information, sufficiently minute for
him to identify more than one of the personages composing it. Johnny
has given him the clue. For the Hibern