"Great God!" cried Fletcher, "it's Davy. What are ye up to now?"

"Let me go!" I cried, as soon as I had got my wind. As luck would have
it, I had run into a pair of daredevil young Kentuckians who had more
than once tasted the severity of Clark's discipline,--Fletcher Blount and
Jim Willis. They fairly shook out of me what had happened, and then
dropped me with a war-whoop and started for the prairie, I after them,
crying out to them to beware of the run. A man must indeed be fleet of
foot to have escaped these young ruffians, and so it proved. When I
reached the hollow there were the two of them fighting with a man in the
water, the ice jangling as they shifted their feet.

"What's yere name?" said Fletcher, cuffing and kicking his prisoner until
he cried out for mercy.

"Maisonville," said the man, whereupon Fletcher gave a war-whoop and
kicked him again.

"That's no way to use a prisoner," said I, hotly.

"Hold your mouth, Davy," said Fletcher, "you didn't ketch him."

"You wouldn't have had him but for me," I retorted.

Fletcher's answer was an oath. They put Maisonville between them, ran
him through the town up to the firing line, and there, to my horror, they
tied him to a post and used him for a shield, despite his heart-rending
yells. In mortal fear that the poor man would be shot down, I was
running away to find some one who might have influence over them when I