a little creek, we
discovered a man on horseback. He was not far off, and carried a gun on
his shoulder, being engaged in following the slow trail of a hound, and
evidently on our tracks.

We could not run, as he was too near to allow of hope for escape from
his gun, and the surrounding country was too open for successful
concealment; so we contented ourselves with such protection as the
available logs and trees afforded, more because he might shoot when he
discovered us than in hope of evading him.

The discovery soon came, when he halted, gazed upon us with a
frightened stare, and screamed out:

"Come, boys; here they are!"

In a moment two other horsemen galloped up, being armed with
double-barreled shotguns. They seemed to be worse scared than we were,
for their hunt was for runaway negroes, and here they had found six
white men, who might be armed.

A deathlike stillness prevailed for some minutes, when it became
apparent that they, who were undoubtedly our captors if they wished to
be, were afraid of us. Seeing this, I crawled from behind my friendly
log and stepped in their direction across the little creek, intending to
discuss the matter of letting them go about their business while we went
about our own, but the leader suddenly wheeled his horse, brought his
gun to a level and commanded me to come no closer. I mildly suggested
that an unarmed man could not harm them, but he responded by repeating
his command and ordering us under arrest.

Being without weapons, and the situation becoming serious, we had no
choice but to submit, for argument was now dangerous.

As we made our captors no trouble, they became comparatively friendly
after we had surrendered, and we then learned, as we had before
surmised, that they were looking for some runaway negroes. They had
found our tracks, where we had slept by the roadside the night before,
and in the huckleberry patch, where we had done much foraging, and had
seen that one of the tracks showed a shoe much run over at the side,
which tallied with that worn by old Ned, one of the escaped darkeys.
This track was left by my shoe, and I was at once dubbed "Old Ned" by my
companions, Captain Fee remarking that the title was appropriate in
several ways.

Despite all our efforts to tell a satisfactory story about ourselves,
and to appear careless and independent, our interviewers evidently
suspected us to be what we were, and they plied us with questions,
finally accu