I rose to my feet--I had been kneeling throughout this extraordinary interview--with a confused thought of eluding their clutches and fleeing from them. In imagination I already saw my murdered form hidden in the trackless wilds. "No, you don't!" exclaimed the whiskered man, placing violent and detaining hands on me. "That's all right," he continued, as the son closed in on me: "I kin handle the little killdee by myself. . . . Now, sonny," he went on, again directing himself to me as I struggled and writhed, helpless in his grasp, "you come along with me!" "Hold on!" called the son. "There's a lot of other stuff here--blankets and truck. He's been makin' quite a collection." "Never mind," bade his parent, roughly turning me about and from behind propelling my resisting form violently forward. "I reckin they was gifts from the Mound Builders, too. We'll come back later on and sort out the plunder." As I was shoved along I endeavoured to explain. I exclaimed; I cried out; I entreated them to stop and to hearken. My pleadings were of no avail and, I am constrained to believe, would have been of no avail even had not distress and agitation rendered me to an extent incoherent. My abductors only urged me onward through the woods at great speed. "Gee! Hear him rave, dad!" I heard the son pant from behind me. Merciful Providence! Now their warped and perverted mentalities translated my speech into ravings! Almost immediately, as it seemed to me, we emerged from the forest into a ploughed field; and but a short distance away I beheld a human domicile--in short, a farmhouse. Filled with sudden relief when I realised that a civilised habitation stood in such hitherto unsuspected proximity to our late camping place, and instantly possessed with a great and uncontrollable craving to reach this haven of refuge and claim the protection of its inhabitants, I wrested myself free from the bearded man with one mighty effort, leaving my flowing collar in his hands, and at top speed set off across the field, crying out as I ran: "Help! Help! Succour! Assistance!" or words to that effect. My flight continued but a few yards. I was overtaken and felled to the earth, my captors thereupon taking steps to effectually restrain me in the free exercise of my limbs and bodily movements. This being one of the most acutely distressing features of the entire experience I shall forego further details, merely stating that they used a rope. It was at this juncture that the powers of connected thought and lucid speech deserted me. I retain an indistinct recollection of being borne bodily into a farm dwelling, of being confronted by a gaunt female who, disregarding my frantic efforts to explain all, persisted in listening only to the rambling accounts of my abductors, and who, on hearing from them their confused version of what had transpired, retreated to a distance and refused to venture nearer until my bonds had been reinforced with a strap.