, when the boy was so far recovered that I had no longer an excuse
for visiting the Haffners' cabin, I was apparently as far from gaining
their friendship or confidence as I had been before the night of the
storm.

"This state of affairs continued unchanged when at the end of three
months from my arrival in that place I found my business there nearly
concluded. I had established the validity of the claims I had been sent
to investigate, had reported upon them, and had been ordered to settle
them with the money that would be forwarded to me for that purpose. At
the same time I imagined that all this business had been conducted with
such secrecy as to be unsuspected by a human being beside myself and my
principals in the matter. Thus thinking, I went alone, and without a
feeling of insecurity, to the nearest railway station, where I expected
to receive the money. It did not arrive on that day; but instead I found
a cipher dispatch stating that it would be sent a week later. Accepting
the situation with as good grace as possible, I purchased some
provisions, placed them in the canvas bag that I had provided for the
money and returned to my temporary forest home.

"Late that night I was awakened from a sound sleep by a knock at the
door of my room. In answer to my inquiry of 'Who's there?' came a
request in the voice of my negro man, that I would give him some
medicine to relieve 'de colic misery dat was like to kill him.' As he
had made similar requests, with which I had complied, several times
before, I unsuspiciously opened the door.

"The candle that I had just lighted gave me a glimpse of Caesar, with
ashen face and the muzzle of a revolver pressed against his head. At the
same moment a pistol was leveled at my own face and I was seized and
bound by two masked men. In vain did I demand the meaning of this
outrage. No answer was given, and I was led outside, while a hasty but
thorough search was made of every portion of the cabin. It was, of
course, a fruitless one, and after a while the two men who made it
rejoined the one who was guarding me.

"Now one of them spoke, and in a voice which in spite of its disguised
tone I at once recognized as that of Case Haffner said, 'You mought as
well give us that money, Major, fer we're bound to have it, and the
quicker you surrender it the easier we'll let you off.'

"I answered that I had no money; that it had not arrived. They replied
that they knew all about my business,