“Well, poor chap, you do look as if you’d had a hard night of it⁠—but there’s a bed here for you when you’ve had your breakfast. No, they ain’t dead, lad⁠—we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew right where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept along on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them⁠—dark as a cellar that sumach path was⁠—and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It was the meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use⁠—’twas bound to come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol raised, and when the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to get out of the path, I sung out, ‘Fire boys!’ and blazed away at the place where the rustling was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy, those villains, and we after them, down through the woods. I judge we never touched them. They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their bullets whizzed by and didn’t do us any harm. As soon as we lost the sound of their feet we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the constables. They got a posse together, and went off to guard the river bank, and as soon as it is light the sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods. My boys will be with them presently. I wish we had some sort of description of those rascals⁠—’twould help a good deal. But you couldn’t see what they were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?”