ck of
his fowl to quiet it. "We'll serve him as I am serving this hen."

The boys hastened to a rendezvous they had appointed with the absent
ones, followed by Jack at a very creditable pace, considering his
excruciating lameness.

As yet, neither Frank nor Seth had been shot. The charge of buck shot
fired from the rebel fowling-piece had entered the bushes just as the
blue uniform left them. But the secessionist cocked the other barrel of
his piece immediately, with the intention of making up for the error of
his first aim.

"Shoot me," shouted Seth, "and you'll be swinging from that limb in five
minutes!"

The man hesitated, glancing quickly about for those who were expected to
put Seth's threat into execution.

"I've twenty fellows with me," added Seth, "and they'll string you up in
no time, by darn!"

The secessionist was not so much impressed by the rather slender oath
with which Seth clinched his speech, as by the sharp and earnest tone in
which the whole was uttered,--Seth walking savagely up to him as he
spoke. All the while, the alarm raised by the negro, and the dog, and the
women, was sounding in the man's ears.

"They're after my turkeys! This is your trick, boy!" and he sprang upon
Frank, lifting his gun as if to level him to the earth.

But Seth sprang after him, and seized the weapon before it descended.
That green down-easter was cool as if he had been at a game of ball. He
was an athletic youth, and he readily saw that Buckley, though a sturdy
farmer, was no match for him. He pushed him back, shouting shrilly, at
the same time, in the words of his favorite poet,--

"'Now, if thou strik'st him but one blow, I'll hurl thee from the brink
as far as ever peasant pitched a bar!'"

This strange form of salutation astonished the rebel even more than the
rough treatment he received at the hands of the vigorous and poetical
Tucket. He saw that it was no time to stay and parley. He knew that his
turkeys were going, and, muttering a parting malediction at Frank, he set
off at a run to protect his poultry-yard.

"Now's our time," said Tucket, starting for the rendezvous, and striking
into another quotation from his favorite minstrel, parodied for the
occasion. "'Speed, Manly, speed! the cow's tough hide on fleeter foot was
ne'er tied. Speed, Manly, speed! such cause of haste a drummer's sinews
never braced. For turkey's doom and rebel deed are in thy course--speed,
Manly, speed!'"

And speed they di