Just as he was emerging on the other bank, with his boots full of water and his trousers dripping, closely followed by Frank brandishing a pistol, a small body of soldiers rode up. They were the conscript-guard. Johnson's look was despairing.
"Why, Billy, what in thunder——? Thought you were sick in bed!"
Another minute and the soldiers took in the situation by instinct—and Johnson's rage was drowned in the universal explosion of laughter.
The boys had captured a member of the conscript-guard.
In the midst of all, Frank and Willy, overwhelmed by their ridiculous error, took to their heels as hard as they could, and the last sounds that reached them were the roars of the soldiers as the scampering boys disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Johnson went back, in a few days, to see John Hall's daughter; but the young lady declared she wouldn't marry any man who let two boys make him wade through a creek; and a month or two later she married Tim Mills.
To all the gibes he heard on the subject of his capture, and they were many, Johnson made but one reply:
"Them boys's had parents in a a—sylum, sure!"