"I was just comin' out of the timber, after crossin' the creek this side of the store, on my way back to camp, when I spied him a-comin' down the hill toward me at a walk, an' I squatted down so's to get him 'tween me an' the sky, to get a better view of him, to make sure it was him; an' then I made up my mind to take him in right there.
"So I got back behind a tree right beside the road, an' when he got nearly to me I stepped out with both barrels cocked an' called out to him to halt. He pulled up, sudden like, with a jerk, an' asked: 'What's up? What's up?'
"'Don't you make a motion toward your pistols,' says I, 'or I'll put two big loads of buckshot into you.' I wasn't more'n six feet from him, an' he must have seen that he had no show to get away or draw a gun. 'Now,' says I, 'do just as I order you, an' don't you try any foolishness, or I'll fill you full of lead. First thing,' says I, 'unbuckle that belt an' drop belt an' pistols in the road.' He did so, at the same time saying: 'Pardner, I reckon you've mistook me for somebody else. Who do you take me fur and who are you, anyway?'
"'I've made no mistake,' I answered. 'You're Tucker, the jayhawker, an' I'm Jack, the giant-killer'—an' wasn't that a big bluff? 'Now,' says I, 'back out a step till I pick up your guns.'
"He did so, an' I kept a close watch of him while I gathered in his battery an' buckled the belt around me over my own.
"Then I commanded, 'Dismount!' which he did like a little man, an' I made him tie his horse to a tree; an' then I undone his lariat from his saddle an' made him turn his back to me while I tied his elbows together behind his back with one end of the lariat; an' with the other end made fast to the horn of the saddle, with a good holt of it in me fist, I mounted his fine horse an' druv him before me, as you saw.
"An now what are we to do with him? No doubt he deserves hanging, as they all do, but it ain't my style to kill a helpless prisoner an' I know you nor Tom wouldn't do such a thing, though I told Tucker, comin' along—just to keep him well scared up that we would hang him in the mornin', sure as fate, as soon as it was light enough to see how to do a good job of it; an' I b'lieve he's afeard we're going to do it, for he's been mighty serious ever since. Ef we was nigh to any of Uncle Sam's sogers we could just turn him over to them, an' they'd fix him, sure, for the order is out fer these jayhawkers to be exterminated to death or druv out of Kansas, an' the sogers is huntin' 'em down wherever they can hear of 'em. By the way, the ol' storekeeper told me that he had sent off that letter, by the mail that went past this evenin', to General Hunter, at Leavenworth, askin' him to send a few sogers out along the Santa Fé road to look after these fellers."
While Jack had been telling us all this we had been standing far enough away from the prisoner so that we were sure he could not hear what was said.
Tom, while apparently listening to Jack, asked no questions and offered no suggestions but seemed wrapped in his own thoughts, and I knew, from often having seen him in a similar revery, that he was studying out some "strategy," as he would call it, to spring on our enemies, the jayhawkers.
When Jack came to a pause Tom began: