y let me get at him with the
knife!"

He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned leg, and was ready to
spring to his feet, when he was caught firmly by the throat, and looking
up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, commonly known as a hay fork, within an
inch of his breast.

"Hold on there! What 'n thunder 'r' y' abaout, y' darned Portagee?" said
a voice, with a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and resolute.

Dick looked from the weapon to the person who held it, and saw a sturdy,
plain man standing over him, with his teeth clinched, and his aspect that
of one all ready for mischief.

"Lay still, naow!" said Abel Stebbins, the Doctor's man; "'f y' don't,
I'll stick ye, 'z sure 'z y' 'r' alive! I been arfter ye f'r a week, 'n'
I got y' naow! I knowed I'd ketch ye at some darned trick or 'nother
'fore I'd done 'ith ye!"

Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was crippled and helpless,
thinking all the time with the Yankee half of his mind what to do about
it. He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around him. He would get
his senses again in a few minutes, very probably, and then he, Mr.
Richard Venner, would be done for.

"Let me up! let me up!" he cried, in a low, hurried voice,--"I 'll give
you a hundred dollars in gold to let me go. The man a'n't hurt,--don't
you see him stirring? He'll come to himself in two minutes. Let me up!
I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars in gold, now, here on the
spot,--and the watch out of my pocket; take it yourself, with your own
hands!"

"I'll see y' darned fust! Ketch me lett'n' go!" was Abel's emphatic
answer. "Yeou lay still, 'n' wait t'll that man comes tew."

He kept the hay-fork ready for action at the slightest sign of
resistance.

Mr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been getting, first his senses, and
then some few of his scattered wits, a little together.

"What is it?"--he said. "Who'shurt? What's happened?"

"Come along here 'z quick 'z y' ken," Abel answered, "'n' haalp me fix
this fellah. Y' been hurt, y'rself, 'n' the' 's murder come pooty nigh
happenin'."

Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presently stared about and asked again,
"Who's hurt? What's happened?"

"Y' 'r' hurt, y'rself, I tell ye," said Abel; "'n' the' 's been a murder,
pooty nigh."

Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck, and, putting his hands up,
found the loop of the lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip
over his head, in the confusion of h