side of the woodpile he got shot at.
The two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could
watch both ways.

By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started
riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady
bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All
the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and
started to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys
started on the run. They got half-way to the tree I was in before the
men noticed. Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and
took out after them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no
good, the boys had too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was
in front of my tree, and slipped in behind it, and so they had the
bulge on the men again. One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a
slim young chap about nineteen years old.

The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was
out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what to
make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men
come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or
other--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I
dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and
his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this
day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two
or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush.
Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their
relations--the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what
was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across
the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take
on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him--I
hain't ever heard anything like it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men
had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without
their horses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as
they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them
and singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most
fell out of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell _all_ that happened--it
would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever