untain
was to follow up the bend of a branch that wound among the elevations.

Then I took in hand an important subdivision of the
proceedings. I went up to Atlanta on the train and laid in a
two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar supply of the most gratifying and
efficient lines of grub that money could buy. I always was an admirer
of viands in their more palliative and revised stages. Hog and hominy
are not only inartistic to my stomach, but they give indigestion to
my moral sentiments. And I thought of Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham,
president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, and how he would
miss the luxury of his home fare as is so famous among wealthy
Southerners. So I sunk half of mine and Caligula's capital in as
elegant a layout of fresh and canned provisions as Burdick Harris or
any other professional kidnappee ever saw in a camp.

I put another hundred in a couple of cases of Bordeaux, two quarts
of cognac, two hundred Havana regalias with gold bands, and a camp
stove and stools and folding cots. I wanted Colonel Rockingham to be
comfortable; and I hoped after he gave up the ten thousand dollars
he would give me and Caligula as good a name for gentlemen and
entertainers as the Greek man did the friend of his that made the
United States his bill collector against Africa.

When the goods came down from Atlanta, we hired a wagon, moved them up
on the little mountain, and established camp. And then we laid for the
colonel.

We caught him one morning about two miles out from Mountain Valley,
on his way to look after some of his burnt umber farm land. He was an
elegant old gentleman, as thin and tall as a trout rod, with frazzled
shirt-cuffs and specs on a black string. We explained to him, brief
and easy, what we wanted; and Caligula showed him, careless, the
handle of his forty-five under his coat.

"What?" says Colonel Rockingham. "Bandits in Perry County, Georgia! I
shall see that the board of immigration and public improvements hears
of this!"

"Be so unfoolhardy as to climb into that buggy," says Caligula, "by
order of the board of perforation and public depravity. This is a
business meeting, and we're anxious to adjourn _sine qua non_."

We drove Colonel Rockingham over the mountain and up the side of it
as far as the buggy could go. Then we tied the horse, and took our
prisoner on foot up to the camp.

"Now, colonel," I says to him, "we're after the ransom, me and my
partner; and no harm will come t