They don't want no out-'n'-out fuss, to my notion, till they kin git inter the stockade for good.

Creep 'long yere with me, sonny, an' 't won't be far till I find a hole somewhar thet 'll hide us fer awhile anyhow." We crawled slowly along, snake-fashion, at the edge of the river, for perhaps thirty feet, our movements hidden by the high and slightly overhanging bank at our left.

The night was so dark that Burns relied more upon feeling than sight to guide him.

At last he stopped suddenly.
"Here's one o' 'em," he said.

"Crawl along in, sonny; thar's lots o' room after ye go a foot er two." It was the merest hole dug into the bank, roughly lined with irregular bits of rock, which opened out into quite a cellar about a yard from the surface.