to frighten a good woman, and
nobody had to look very long into my mother's face to make up his mind
that that was what she was, sure enough good.

"Well, we backed and filled for a spell and I see that things were gettin'
worse so I waited until we worked out away a few yards up a little rise on
the side of the mountain. The men all the while pretended that they
thought it was a joke, and then when I got just to the right place, quick
as a wink I jumped up and yelled at my horse in the loudest tones I could
muster, and when little Zeke really tries hard to make himself heard there
isn't usually much trouble in hearing him. I struck my horses with my whip
at the same time and all together we had considerable of a ruction, but it
turned out just as I thought it would. Their horses were scared worse than
mine and when they all four jumped ahead going in opposite directions, of
course something had to give way and it wasn't my wheels either, let me
tell you. I didn't wait to investigate how much damage I really had done,
but I put my horses into their best licks and stopped just long enough to
take in my poor, old, frightened mother, and then I didn't stop, let me
tell you, until I was out o' sight of those men."

"Did they try to chase you?"

"No, they didn't. I'm thinkin' they were having troubles enough of their
own just then. At all events I never see any more of them."

"Do you really believe they meant to rob you?" asked George.

"Sure, as you're born!" replied Zeke. "That was just what they were there
for. The only thing that saved me was my havin' my mother along. 'Twasn't
long afterward before I heard of a man being held up just as I was. Two
men came along in a buggy and locked wheels with him and while he was
trying to help himself out of the fix one of them dropped him with the
butt of his gun and went through his pockets and all his belongings.
That's one reason why I have always remembered Jump Off Joe Creek."

"Remembered what?" laughed Fred.

"Jump Off Joe Creek," repeated Zeke. "That was the name of the mountain
brook right near where I had my fight with the robbers."

"But I didn't see that you had any fight," persisted Fred.

"Not exactly a fight, but it's where I would have had a tough fight if it
hadn't been for me havin' my mother 'long with me. Perhaps I told you she
was in the buggy with me when those wheels locked."

"I believe you did remark something about that," said Fred so drolly tha