"Did you see Colonel Butler and his party?"
"Oh, yes," answered the settler, as though he pitied the ignorance of his listeners, "I have had them under my eye ever since they came out of the fort. Do you know that I came very near capturing them all?"
Ned replied that they had no knowledge of such a startling fact.
"The minute I laid eyes onto them, I made up my mind they were up to some deviltry, and I watched them—watched them as a cat does a mouse. I heard that old rascal say something about his looking for the purtiest lady in the valley, and I knew at once he meant Mrs. Perkins, and that roused my dander, as you may guess, and I swore I would go for him. I was so mad that I was determined to snatch the whole party, and I laid my plans to do it."
"And how was it that you failed?"
"By the merest slip in the world. My plan was to follow close behind, dogging their footsteps, and picking them off one by one till they were all gone. It would have been a big thing, wouldn't it?"
"Most certainly it would; and why did you fail?"
"Wall, I'm just telling you; it didn't take me long to fix up all my scheme, and I had just drawn a bead on Colonel Butler, having Captain Bagley in a line, too, so that I was sure to fetch them both, when I happened to remember that my gun wasn't loaded. I drew off to load it with an extra large charge, when something must have told them of the danger that threatened, for they moved off and before I could find them again it was so dark that they couldn't be found, and so by that narrow chance they all escaped."