"Yes. Come on and help us catch them."
"No; I can't do that—exactly;—but I tell you what I can do. I can tell you whar one is!"
The boys' faces glowed. "All right!"
"Let me see," he began, reflectively, chewing a stick. "Does y' all know Billy Johnson?"
The boys did not know him.
"You sure you don't know him? He's a tall, long fellow, 'bout forty years old, and breshes his hair mighty slick; got a big nose, and a gap-tooth, and a mustache. He lives down in the lower neighborhood."
Even after this description the boys failed to recognize him.
"Well, he's the feller. I can tell you right whar he is, this minute. He did me a mean trick, an' I'm gwine to give him up. Come along."
"What did he do to you?" inquired the boys, as they followed him down the road.
"Why—he—; but 't's no use to be rakin' it up agin. You know he always passes hisself off as one o' the conscrip'-guards,—that's his dodge. Like as not, that's what he's gwine try and put off on y' all now; but don't you let him fool you."