He didn't know what to
make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful
surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the men
come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or other
--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I dasn't
come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and his cousin
Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this day yet. He
said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two or three of the
enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in ambush. Buck said his
father and brothers ought to waited for their relations--the Shepherdsons
was too strong for them. I asked him what was become of young Harney and
Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across the river and was safe. I was
glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage to
kill Harney that day he shot at him--I hain't ever heard anything like
it.

All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men had
slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their
horses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as they
swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and
singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most fell out
of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell ALL that happened--it would make me
sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that
night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of them--lots
of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.
Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little
gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the
trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my
mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was
to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss
Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I
judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way
she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess
wouldn't ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a
piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and
got away as quick as I coul