“They are after you!” added Tom, in a hoarse whisper.
The fellow most provokingly refused to hear him, and Tom thought his skull was amazingly thick, and his perceptions amazingly blunt.
“Now you come down from thar,” said he, as he picked up a couple of stones. “You act like a monkey, and I s’pose yer be one. Now make tracks down that chimley.”
But instead of doing this, Tom retreated into his shell, as a snail does when the moment of peril arrives. The soldier in the house was not deaf; and if he had been, he could hardly have helped hearing the stentorian tones of his victim. Instead of going out the back door, like a sensible man, he passed out at the front door, and in a moment more Tom heard his voice just beneath him.
“Halt!” shouted the soldier, as he brought his musket to his shoulder. “Your name is Joe Burnap.”
“That’s my name, but I don’t want nothin’ o’ you,” replied the embarrassed militiaman, as he dropped the stones with which he had intended to assault Tom’s citadel.
“I want something of you,” replied the soldier. “You must go with me. Advance, and give yourself up.”
“What fur?” asked poor Joe.
“We want you for the army. You are an enrolled militiaman. You must go with me.”
“Ill be dog derned if I do,” answered Joe Burnap, desperately.