Swallow,'"

"I know,--the jug!"

"That's it, sure's you live. I saw him over on the island. I declare! To
think of an empty demijohn having so much good in it!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

ANOTHER GRAND PLAN, AND A VERY GRAND RUNAWAY.

The whole community was stirred up over the news of the capture of the
tramp. It made a first-class excitement for a place of that size; but
none of the inhabitants took a deeper interest in the matter than did
Ford and Frank and the two Hart boys. It was difficult for them to get
their minds quite right about it, especially the first pair, to whom it
was a matter of unasked question just how much help Ham had given Dab in
capturing the marauder. Mr. Foster himself got a little excited about
it, when he came home; but poor Annie was a good deal more troubled than
pleased.

"O mother!" she exclaimed. "Do you suppose I shall have to appear in
court, and give my testimony as a witness?"

"I hope not, my dear. Perhaps your father can manage to prevent it
somehow."

It would not have been an easy thing to do, even for so good a lawyer as
Mr. Foster, if Burgin himself had not saved them all trouble on that
score. Long before the slow processes of country criminal justice could
bring him to actual trial, so many misdeeds were brought home to him,
from here and there, that he gave the matter up, and not only confessed
to the attack on Annie's pocket-book, but to the barn-burning, to which
Dab's cudgelling had provoked him. He made his case so very clear, that
when he finally came before a judge and jury, and pleaded "guilty,"
there was nothing left for them to do but to say just what he was guilty
of, and how long he should "break stone" to pay for it. It was likely to
be a good deal more than "ten years," if he lived out his "time."

All that came to pass some months later, however; and just now the
village had enough to talk about in discussing the peculiar manner of
his capture.

The story of the demijohn leaked out, of course; and, while it did not
rob Dab and Ham of any part of their glory, it was made to do severe
duty in the way of a temperance lecture.

Old Jock, indeed, protested.

"You see, boys," said he, "real good liquor, like that, don't do nobody
no harm. That was the real stuff,--prime old apple-jack 'at I'd had in
my cellar ten year last Christmas; an' it jest toled that feller across
the bay, and captered him, without no manner of diffikilty."

There were some a