e woods; but, my Lord, there was a good half mile
of it! We strung out--four cops and my driver and me--hundreds of yards
apart and all yelling, so maybe the poor lost things would hear us.

"We made up to the woods without raising a sign; and, my lands, wasn't
it dark inside the woods! I worked forward, trying to keep straight from
tree to tree; but I stumbled and tore my clothes and sprained my wrist,
and blacked one eye the prettiest you'd want to see--mighty near being a
blubberhead myself, I was--it not being my kids, you understand. Oh, I
kept to it though! I'd have gone straight up the grand old state of New
York into Lake Erie if something hadn't stopped me.

"It was a light off through the pine and oak trees, and down in a kind
of little draw--not a lamplight but a fire blazing up. I yelled to both
sides toward the others. I can yell good when I'm put to it. Then I
started for the light. I could make out figures round the fire. Mebbe
it's a Blackhanders' camp, I think; so I didn't yell any more. I
cat-footed. And in a minute I was up close and seen 'em--there in the
dripping rain.

"Rupert, Junior, was asleep, leaned setting up against a tree, with a
messenger boy's cap on. And Margery was asleep on a pile of leaves, with
her cheek on one hand and something over her. And a fat man was asleep
on his back, with his mouth open, making an awful fuss about it. And the
only one that wasn't asleep was a funny little old man setting against
another tree. He had on the scout's campaign hat and he held the gun
across his chest in the crook of his arm. He hadn't any coat on. Then I
see his coat was what was over Margery; and I looked closer and it was a
messenger boy's coat.

"I was more floored than ever when I took that in. I made a little move,
and this funny old man must have heard me--he looked like one of them
silly little critters that play hob with Rip Van Winkle out on the
mountain before he goes to sleep. And he cocks his ears this way and
that; then he jumped to his feet, and I come forward where he could see
me. And darned if he didn't up with this here air gun of Rupert's, like
a flash, and plunk me with a buckshot it carried--right on my sprained
wrist, too!

"Say, I let out a yell, and I had him by the neck of his shirt in one
grab. I was still shaking him when the others come to. The fat man set
up and rubbed his eyes and blinked. That's all he done. Rupert woke up
the same minute and begun to cry lik