In the delightful excitement Roland frequently forgot the perils
that surrounded him; was often quite oblivious to the fact that he
was in the toils of a den of robbers. Strange to say he had come to
think less of the blood upon his own hands since hearing the history
of Markham Swamp, and finding himself a prisoner among the horrible
fiends.
Having caught five or six dozen speckled trout the party returned to
the lair. That evening the chief and Joe returned, the face of each
dark and threatening. There was no hilarity, and supper was eaten in
silence. Then the robbers smoked for an hour, while the girls
repaired torn garments. Nancy did not raise her eyes from her work;
but there was in her face a new light, the light of Hope.
CHAPTER VIII.
UNDERGROUND MYSTERIES OF THE SWAMP.
Now that the reader may feel himself upon sure ground as to the facts
of this true story, I may state that Roland likewise learnt from Nancy
that the gang had a rendezvous in a piece of dense wood known as
Brook's Bush, close to the mouth of the Don River. It is also a fact
that when the den at Markham was broken up finally, some of the
surviving desperadoes took up their permanent abode at Brook's Bush,
where they kept an illicit still.
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