"
"Silence, you talking fool!" shouted the enraged leader; "your prating
is sufficient to drive a man mad. Is it not enough to be robbed and
beaten, but we must be tormented with your folly? Help to get out the
provisions, if any is left in the wallet, and try and stop your mouth
with food."
This injunction was obeyed, and the whole party, amidst sundry groans
and contortions, excited by the disordered state of their backs, made
their arrangements for a scanty meal. A large fire of dry wood was
burning in the cleft of a rock, and at length they began to recover from
the confusion of their flight, and to collect their scattered senses.
Their hunger being appeased, and many of their garments thrown aside for
the better opportunity of dressing their wounds, the gang began to plot
measures of revenge. An hour was spent in this manner, and various
expedients were proposed; but as they all depended on personal prowess
for their success, and were attended by great danger, they were of
course rejected. There was no possibility of approaching the troops by
surprise, their vigilance being ever on the watch; and the hope of
meeting Captain Lawton away from his men, was equally forlorn, for the
trooper was constantly engaged in his duty, and his movements were so
rapid, that any opportunity of meeting with him, at all, must depend
greatly on accident.
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