s like the Flint can retire into the
brush when they don't want to be overhauled. That wasn't the way of it,
however. With such a splendid animal as your poor horse, Captain, an'
ridden to death as it was--an' as I 'spected it would be--I knowed I had
no chance o' comin' up wi' the Flint, so I took advantage o' my
knowledge o' the lay o' the land, an' pushed ahead by a straighter
line--finishin' the last bit on futt over the ridge of a hill. That
sent me well ahead o' the Flint, an' so I got here before him. Havin'
ways of eavesdroppin' that other people don't know on, I peeped into the
cave here, and saw and heard how matters stood. Then I thought o'
harkin' back on my tracks an' stoppin' the Flint wi' a bullet but I
reflected `what good'll that do? The shot would wake up the outlaws an'
putt them on the scent all the same.' Then I tried to listen what their
talk was about, so as I might be up to their dodges; but I hadn't bin
listenin' long when in tramps the Flint an' sounds the alarm. Of course
I might have sent him an p'r'aps one o' the others to their long home
from where I stood; but I've always had an objection to shoot a man
behind his back. It has such a sneakin' sort o' feel about it! An'
then, the others--I couldn't see how many there was--would have swarmed
out on me, an' I'd have had to make tracks for the scrub, an' larn
nothin' more. So I fixed to keep quiet an' hear and see all that I
could--p'r'aps find out where they fixed to pull out to. But I heard
nothin' more worth tellin'. They only made some hurried, an' by no
means kindly, observations about poor Buck an' Leather an' went off over
the hills. I went into the woods a bit myself after that, just to be
well out o' the way, so to speak, an' when I got back here Leather was
gone!"

"And you didn't see the man that carried him off?"

"No, I didn't see him."

"You'd have shot him, of course, if you had seen him?"

"No, indeed, captain, I wouldn't."

"No! why not?" asked the captain with a peculiar smile.

"Well, because," answered the scout, with a look of great solemnity, "I
wouldn't shoot such a man on any account--no matter what he was doin'!"

"Indeed!" returned the other with a broadening smile. "I had no idea
you were superstitious, Ben. I thought you feared neither man nor
devil."

"What I fear an' what I don't fear," returned the scout with quiet
dignity, "is a matter which has never given me much consarn."

"Well, do