“How are you, Mr. Simpson?”
“You've got the best of me, sir,” said Simpson, who did not know him.
“Well, I rather think I have,” coolly replied the stranger, whose words conveyed a double meaning, as we soon learned. We had all come to a halt by this time and the strange horsemen had surrounded us. They were all armed with double-barrelled shot-guns, rifles, and revolvers. We also were armed with revolvers, but we had no idea of danger, and these men, much to our surprise, had “got the drop” on us and had covered us with their weapons, so that we were completely at their mercy. The whole movement of corralling us was done so quietly and quickly that it was accomplished before we knew it.
“I'll trouble you for your six-shooters, gentlemen,” now said the leader.
“I'll give 'em to you in a way you don't want,” replied Simpson.
The next moment three guns were levelled at Simpson. “If you make a move you're a dead man,” said the leader.
Simpson saw that he was taken at a great disadvantage, and thinking it advisable not to risk the lives of the party by any rash act on his part, he said: “I see now that you have the best of me; but who are you, anyhow?”
“I am Joe Smith,” was the reply.
“What! the leader of the Danites?” asked Simpson.
“You are correct,” said Smith, for he it was.