t."

Keeping vigilant watch, they labored far into the night until the camp
on the knoll was a hard nut to crack, with its surrounding ditch and
palisade of logs behind which a man could lie and shoot. Now and then it
might have been noted that Jack Cockrell and Joe Hawkridge conferred
with their heads together as though something private were in the wind.
As soon as they were relieved from duty, some time before the dawn, they
stole very softly away from the knoll and groped along the path which
led to the creek. Curiosity and the impetuous folly of youth impelled
them to reconnoitre the pirates' bivouac.

"We may hear something worth listening to," whispered Jack, "and perhaps
we can crawl close and steal some of their arms."

"None of that," chided young Hawkridge. "I am a man of goodly station in
Charles Town and I would go back with a whole hide."

"You have grown too respectable," grumbled Jack. "Here is the chance for
one last fling----"

His words stuck in his throat. A gurgle of horrified amazement and he
tumbled headlong into the grass with a bare, sinewy arm wrapped around
his neck. He fought to free himself but the breath was fairly choked out
of him. Joe Hawkridge was desperately thrashing about in the swamp,
gasping and snorting, his cries also smothered. In a twinkling they were
captives, their arms tightly bound behind them, the stifling grip of
their necks unrelaxed. Weakened almost to suffocation, the two lads
could make no lively resistance. Jack uttered one feeble shout for help
but subsided when those strong fingers tightened the clutch on his
windpipe.

The assailants made no sound. Not a word was uttered. There were several
of them, for the helpless prisoners were picked up bodily and lugged
along by the head and the heels. They expected to be taken into the
pirates' camp, believing they had been surprised and overpowered by an
outlying sentry post. It was an old game, reflected Joe Hawkridge, to
hold them alive as hostages. But he was vastly puzzled when these silent
kidnappers, deftly picking their way in the darkness, took a direction
which led them away from the bank of the creek. They had forsaken the
trampled path and were proceeding through the trackless swamp whose
pitfalls were avoided by a sort of sixth sense.

A mile of this laborious, uncanny progress and the bearers dumped their
burdens and paused to rest. The two lads dizzily crawled to their feet
and peered at the shadowy fi