An urchin of twelve summers, who confessed to _sub rosa_ practices while the paternal premises were being raided, but nevertheless claimed to get one eye squarely on them as they rounded a hill, one and three-quarters of a mile distant, was convinced that the heads of the rear files (front not visible) extended above the tops of the trees. This statement was delivered with much earnestness of manner, and at its conclusion all the saints and martyrs in the calendar were invited to give it their indorsement. * * * * * Peter Burleson, aged fifteen, who saw the party ride out of the village cemetery (a whim of the raiders, inducing the belief that they had undergone a partial hibernation amid these surroundings), was able to state something as to its numbers in keeping with the above. According to this witness, the weird force was composed of two battalions and a squadron, or about two thousand men and horses, exclusive of a section of artillery, and an indefinite number of pack-mules. The horses composing the procession were deep black in color, emitted columns of smoke and flame from their nostrils (_vide_ pictorial papers), and varied in height from a lamppost to a telegraph pole. Of the raiders themselves he would say nothing (under the impression, doubtless, that the theme had been exhausted); but as to the "rig" they wore, he was morally certain that an inverted churn constituted the head-dress, a wagon sheet of mammoth pattern the shoulder-garb, and army canteens (probably bisected and thus made to do double duty) the button ornaments. Observing something at this point in the countenances of his auditors which he did not quite like, he availed himself of their knowledge of dictionary superlatives in an exhortation of some length, and concluded by submitting as his wish that he be "hung, drawn, and quartered," and such further disposition made of his remains as the skeptics of the crowd might propose.