Hitch went. His intentions were good. He really desired to find Dude, because Dude had the jug. He purposed to hunt for him. But a man who has had fourteen swallows out of a jug of free whisky twenty minutes before cannot be expected to maintain a given purpose very long.
By the time Hitch had crossed the pasture, he needed all the woods along the river for walking room. The entire width of the levee was not too much to accommodate his devious journey back toward Sawtown.
On the edge of the town, near the commissary store of the big sawmill, he found a most interesting ditch. It was about ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep, and was hard and dry at the bottom.
He leaned over to examine that ditch with great care. He seemed to want to remember it, to impress it on his mind. It may fairly be presumed that he did impress it on his mind. He fell into it on his head.
At midnight he was sleeping in it undisturbed. A little after midnight something happened. A man walking down the deep gulley stepped on Hitch Diamond and woke him up.
V
AMONG THIEVES.
Hitch did not know how long he lay in the ditch after he had been awakened. He tried to remember where he was and how he got there, but he was half asleep and wholly confused, and the task was too great for him.
What woke him up completely was a long, shrill whistle, followed by four pistol-shots in rapid succession.
Hitch sprang to his feet and started running down the gulley, but he stumbled in the dark and fell headlong.
Three more pistol-shots cracked in the still night air, a man screamed, and Hitch sprang up and started again. He stumbled and fell a second time.