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It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were downSouth, in Alabama--Bill Driscoll and myself-when this kidnappingidea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during amoment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that outtill later.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and calledSummit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious andself-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around aMaypole.Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, andwe needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulenttown-lot scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on thefront steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strongin semi-rural communities therefore, and for other reasons, akidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius ofnewspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talkabout such things. We knew that Summit couldn't get after us withanything stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisicalbloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget.So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizennamed Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, amortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer andforecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, andhair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at thenews-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured thatEbenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to acent. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with adense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was acave. There we stored provisions.

One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset'shouse. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on theopposite fence.

"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag ofcandy and a nice ride?"

The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," saysBill, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, atlast, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. Wetook him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedarbrake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, threemiles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises onhis features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at theentrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boilingcoffee, with two buzzard tailfeathers stuck in his red hair. Hepoints a stick at me when I come up, and says:

"Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief,the terror of the plains?"

"He's all right now," says Bill, rolling up his trousers andexamining some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Indian. We'remaking Buffalo Bill's show look like magic-lantern views ofPalestine in the town hall. I'm Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief'scaptive, and I'm to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kidcan kick hard."

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. Thefun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was acaptive himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy,and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, Iwas to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and breadand gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speechsomething like this:

"I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet'possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school.Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot's aunt's speckled hen's eggs.Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy.Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. Whatmakes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are thestars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls.You dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make anynoise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in thiscave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkeyor a fish can't. How many does it take to make twelve?"

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin,and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave torubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he wouldlet out a warwhoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boyhad Bill terrorized from the start.

"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"

"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate togo to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back homeagain, Snake-eye, will you?"

"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."

"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in allmy life."

We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wideblankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraidhe'd run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up andreaching for his rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine andBill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of aleaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of theoutlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamedthat I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferociouspirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams fromBill. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps,such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they weresimply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as womenemit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing tohear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave atdaybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting onBill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other hehad the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he wasindustriously and realistically trying to take Bill's scalp,according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him theevening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But,from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on hisside of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as longas that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along towardsun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned atthe stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid; butI sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.

"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thoughtsitting up would rest it."

"You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned atsunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if hecould find a match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody willpay out money to get a little imp like that back home?"

"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind thatparents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast,while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre."

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye overthe contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see thesturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforksbeating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what Isaw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with adun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hitherand yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents.There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading thatsection of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposedto my view. "Perhaps," says I to myself, "it has not yet beendiscovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin fromthe fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says I, and I went down themountain to breakfast.

When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side ofit, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with arock half as big as a cocoanut.

"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill, "andthen mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got agun about you, Sam?"

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up theargument. "I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill. "No man ever yetstruck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You betterbeware!"

After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with stringswrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the caveunwinding it.

"What's he up to now?" says Bill, anxiously. "You don't think he'llrun away, do you, Sam?"

"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home body.But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don'tseem to be much excitement around Summit on account of hisdisappearance; but maybe they haven't realized yet that he's gone.His folks may think he's spending the night with Aunt Jane or oneof the neighbours. Anyhow, he'll be missed to-day. To-night we mustget a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars forhis return."

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might haveemitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a slingthat Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling itaround his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill,like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerheadrock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear.He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the fryingpan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out andpoured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, doyou know who my favourite Biblical character is?"

"Take it easy," says I. "You'll come to your senses presently."

"King Herod," says he. "You won't go away and leave me here alone,will you, Sam?"

I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his frecklesrattled.

"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now,are you going to be good, or not?"

"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt OldHank. But what did he hit me for? I'll behave, Snake-eye, if youwon't send me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scoutto-day."

"I don't know the game," says I. "That's for you and Mr. Bill todecide. He's your playmate for the day. I'm going away for a while,on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say youare sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once."

I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside andtold him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three milesfrom the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnappinghad been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send aperemptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransomand dictating how it should be paid.

"You know, Sam," says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting aneye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamiteoutrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lostmy nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid.He's got me going. You won't leave me long with him, will you,Sam?"

"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep theboy amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letterto old Dorset."

Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while RedChief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down,guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to makethe ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "Iain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspectof parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain'thuman for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for thatforty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chanceat fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up tome."

So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter thatran this way:

Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It isuseless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to findhim. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restoredto you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large billsfor his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at thesame spot and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafterdescribed. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writingby a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o'clock. Aftercrossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are threelarge trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of thewheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of thefence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a smallpasteboard box.

The messenger will place the answer in this box and returnimmediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand asstated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safeand well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you donot accede to them no further communication will be attempted.
TWO DESPERATE MEN.
I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As Iwas about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you wasgone."

"Play it, of course," says I. "Mr. Bill will play with you. Whatkind of a game is it?"

"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to thestockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I 'mtired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout."

"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Billwill help you foil the pesky savages."

"What am I to do?" asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands andknees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"

"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the schemegoing. Loosen up."

Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye likea rabbit's when you catch it in a trap.

" How far is it to the stockade, kid? " he asks, in a husky mannerof voice.

"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to humpyourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!"

The Black Scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in hisside.

"For Heaven's sake," says Bill, "hurry back, Sam, as soon as youcan. I wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say,you quit kicking me or I '11 get up and warm you good."

I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the postoffice andstore, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. Onewhiskerand says that he hears Summit is all upset on account ofElder Ebenezer Dorset's boy having been lost or stolen. That wasall I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referredcasually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my lettersurreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrierwould come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found.I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, butthere was no response.

So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to awaitdevelopments.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbledout into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was thekid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face.Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a redhandkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but Icouldn't help it. I'm a grown person with masculine proclivitiesand habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems ofegotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent himhome. All is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill,"that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft theyenjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernaturaltortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles ofdepredation; but there came a limit."

"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.

"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade, notbarring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was givenoats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour Ihad to try to explain to him why there was nothin' in holes, how aroad can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you,Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of hisclothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks mylegs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got two or threebites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

"But he's gone"--continues Bill--"gone home. I showed him the roadto Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick.I'm sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or BillDriscoll to the madhouse."

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peaceand growing content on his rose-pink features.

"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, isthere?"

"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria and accidents.Why?"

"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a look behind you."

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits downplump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass andlittle sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then Itold him that my scheme was to put the whole job throughimmediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it bymidnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill bracedup enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise toplay the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt alittle better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of beingcaught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professionalkidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left--and themoney later on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fieldson all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for anyone to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossingthe fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I wasup in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for themessenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle,locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fencepost, slips afolded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back towardSummit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I sliddown the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struckthe woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. Iopened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It waswritten with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance ofit was this:

Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard tothe ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are alittle high in your demands, and I hereby make you acounter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you willaccept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fiftydollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You hadbetter come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and Icouldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody they sawbringing him back.
Very respectfully,EBENEZER DORSET.
"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent--"

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealinglook in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talkingbrute.

"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all?We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to abed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr.Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. Youain't going to let the chance go, are you?"

"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb hassomewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransomand make our get-away."

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him thathis father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair ofmoccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer's frontdoor. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting thefifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according tothe original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred andfifty dollars into Dorset's hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home hestarted up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight asa leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, likea porous plaster.

"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I thinkI can promise you ten minutes."

"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippinglyfor the Canadian border."

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good arunner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of summit beforeI could catch up with him.