“I reckon I have, by George! Sam Hildebrand was here not more than an hour ago, and I tried to detain him; he was alone and said he was going to stay until to-morrow night at a certain house; I know the place; hold on a minute! I‘ll get my gun and coat and will go with you—we‘ve got him this time, sure!” “All right,” said Tom, “come along; we are always glad to meet a man of your stripe.” He marched along with the boys until they came to where I was waiting for them; Stokes had forgotten to ask many questions, but on coming up to me in the dim moonlight he asked, “how many men have you?” one of my men answered “twelve.” He at once began laying plans for my capture, and related what he had done on previous occasions “to capture Sam Hildebrand, but that Sam was too sharp for him.” When I thought that he had said enough I stopped him with the remark—“I am Sam Hildebrand myself!” and emptied old “Kill-devil” into his bosom. We then proceeded on, traveling altogether in the night, until about day-break; one morning we got near the ruins of the old Hildebrand homestead, and called at the house of a friend. Knowing that we were in an enemy‘s country and liable to be trailed, we could not sleep, nor could we travel in the daytime, considering the fact that if our enemies got after us we would have to run about one hundred and fifty miles to get out of their lines, and that the government had no less than four thousand men in active employment all the time for the especial purpose of capturing me. We secreted our horses in a thicket under a bluff and entered a cave near by, which was afterwards called by my name. Our friend remained in the cave a few minutes with us, and it was from him I learned the particulars of the atrocities committed by the Federal troops, in the murder of my poor innocent brother Henry. I shall not attempt to describe my feelings, when the truth flashed across my mind that all my brothers had been slain in cold blood—Frank, first, and now the other two—leaving me not a brother upon earth except my brother William, who was in the Federal army, but whose well known loyalty was not sufficient to shield his neutral brothers from an indiscriminate butchery. For several hours I remained quietly in the cave, studying the matter over; but finally my mind was made up. I determined to sell my life as dearly as possible, and from that moment wage a war of fire and blood against my persecutors, while one should last, or until I was numbered with the dead.