an
will get away while.--Now please take some of those revolvers out of my
face--do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks, my liver comes
up into my throat! If you have a mother--any of you--or if any of you
have ever had a mother--or a--grandmother--or a--"

"Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or have we got to--. There
--there--none of that! Put up your hands!"

"Gentlemen--I know you are gentlemen by your--"

"Silence! If you want to be facetious, young man, there are times and
places more fitting. This is a serious business."

"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The funerals I have attended in my
time were comedies compared to it. Now I think--"

"Curse your palaver! Your money!--your money!--your money! Hold!--put
up your hands!"

"Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am situated--now don't put
those pistols so close--I smell the powder.

"You see how I am situated. If I had four hands--so that I could hold up
two and--"

"Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!"

"Gentlemen, don't! Nobody's watching the other fellow. Why don't some
of you--. Ouch! Take it away, please!

"Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands; and so I can't take
out my money--but if you'll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will
do as much for you some--"

"Search him Beauregard--and stop his jaw with a bullet, quick, if he wags
it again. Help Beauregard, Stonewall."

Then three of them, with the small, spry leader, adjourned to Mike and
fell to searching him. I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured
me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel
brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had
received, it was but common prudence to keep still. When everything had
been taken from me,--watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small
value,--I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my
empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm my feet and stir up
some latent courage--but instantly all pistols were at my head, and the
order came again:

They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep his hands
above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman said:

"Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, you hide behind
that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush
there. Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they take down
their hands within ten mi