Ransom of Red Chief - wjj

It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course.

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with.

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with.

We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with anything stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget.

We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with anything stronger than constables and, maybe, some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away.

He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band.

At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers.

There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

"I was only funning," says he sullenly.

Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming.

I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away.

I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail.

I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail.

There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill, "that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed.

Sand ain't a palatable substitute.

On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam.

Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer.

His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.