ct sawing the axle? You
had time enough when it stood in the farmyard last night, and you were
about it a full hour. The wagon stands as stoutly on its all-fours as
the first day it was built."

"I did that, sir, and did it, I thought, to the very mark. I calculated
to leave enough solid to bear them to the night, when in our circuit we
should come among them just in time to finish the business. The wood is
stronger, perhaps, than I took it to be, but it won't hold out longer
than to-morrow, I'm certain, when, if we watch, we can take our way with
them."

"Well, I hope so, and we must watch them, for it won't do to let the old
fellow escape. He has, I know, a matter of three or four hundred hard
dollars in his possession, to buy lands in Mississippi, and it's a pity
to let so much good money go out of the state."

"But why may we not set upon them now?" inquired one of the youngest of
the party.

"For a very good reason, Briggs--they are armed, ready, and nearly equal
in number to ourselves; and though I doubt not we should be able to ride
over them, yet I am not willing to leave one or more of us behind.
Besides, if we keep the look-out to-morrow, as we shall, we can settle
the business without any such risk."

This being the determination, the robbers, thus disappointed of their
game, were nevertheless in better humor than might have been well
expected; but such men are philosophers, and their very recklessness of
human life is in some respects the result of a due estimate of its
vicissitudes. They rode on their way laughing at the sturdy bluntness of
the old wagoner, which their leader, of whom we have already heard under
the name of Dillon, related to them at large. With a whoop and halloo,
they cheered the travellers as they rode by, but at some distance from,
the encampment. The tenants of the encampment, thus strangely but
fortunately thrown together, having first seen that everything was
quiet, took their severally assigned places, and laid themselves down
for repose. The pedler contenting himself with guessing that "them 'ere
chaps did not make no great deal by that speculation."

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE OUTLAWS.

It was in the wildest and least-trodden recesses of the rock and forest,
that the band of outlaws, of which Rivers was the great head and leader,
had fixed their place of abode and assemblage. A natural cavity, formed
by the juxtaposition of two huge rocks, overhung by a third, with some