"Sure, Mister Ralph dear, we were returned as dead, and it would have been sore against our consciences to take sarvice under the circumstances. But your honour was axin' how we escaped. Sure, when I was hunting for the Redskin spy, didn't I find out the root-house. And so, afther matters came to the worst, we got in there, with food enough to last until those thieves who wanted our scalps had taken themselves off. As to cutting our way through the enemy, I knew well enough that would not suit me; for I could not run, and Klitz would have been a mark a mile off. So, when you rushed out, he and I dropped down through the trap and stowed ourselves away. The Indians, marcifully, niver came to look for us. In truth, while they were hunting about down came the building on their heads, and we could hear their shrieks and cries as they tried to scramble out from among the flames. If it had not been for a small vent-hole far away up in a corner, we should have been suffocated, maybe. All day long we could hear them screeching and hallooing outside the house; but before night the thieves of the world took themselves off, we suppose, for all was silent. "At the end of a couple of days we thought we might safely venture to take a few mouthfuls of fresh air, and begin to work our way out from among the ruins. It was no easy job, but we got free at last. Neither Redskin nor white man was to be seen; and of all the buildings, the hut and the mill only were standing. The villains had carried off all our blankets and most of the cooking-pots, but enough was left for our wants, seeing that we had nothing to put in them. However, Klitz was not the boy to starve. He soon caught some fish, and I got hold of a sheep which came up to the door; and if there had only been a dhrop of the cratur', we should have lived like princes. One thing there was which the Indians had not carried off, and that was a wheel-barrow. When Klitz saw it, `We will go to California!' says he. Says I, `I'm the boy for it!' So, as we had our muskets and a few rounds of ammunition, afther drying the mutton and making some other necessary preparations we set off. The Indians had left the country, and no one stopped us, so surely your honour won't be so hard as to stop us now!" "That must depend on what Lieutenant Broadstreet has to say in the matter," I observed. "I am under his orders, and will conduct you to him." Klitz elongated his visage on hearing this, but Barney took the matter with his usual good-humour. In consideration of the dangers the men had gone through, and their conduct in the defence of the farm, the lieutenant treated them kindly. He could not allow them to continue on their way to California, of course, which they most certainly would never have reached, but he inflicted no greater punishment than ordering them to mount the baggage-mules and return with us.