On a fine May morning, 1780, as the family of Sheriff Firman, of Freehold county, New Jersey, was at breakfast, a breathless soldier burst into the room, stating that as he and another were conducting to the court-house two men, taken up on suspicion at Colt's Neck, they had knocked down his comrade, seized his musket, and escaped. The Sheriff, on hearing this relation, mounted his horse and galloped to the court-house to alarm the guard. His son, Tunis, a lad of about seventeen, small of his age, seized a musket, loaded only with small shot to kill blackbirds in the cornfields, and, putting on a cartridge-box, sent his little brother up stairs for the bayonet, and then, forgetting to wait for it, hurried off alone in pursuit. After running in a westerly direction about a mile, he discovered the men sitting on a fence, who, perceiving him, ran into a swamp. As the morning was warm, he hastily pulled off his shoes and coat, and darted in after them, keeping close after them for over a mile, when they got out of the swamp, and climbed into separate trees. As he came up one of them discharged at him the musket taken from the guard. The ball whistled over his head. Feeling for his bayonet, he discovered that it was still with his little brother. He then pointed his gun at the man with the musket, but deemed it imprudent to fire, reflecting that, even if he killed him, his comrade could easily match such a stripling as himself. He compelled the man to throw down the musket by threatening him with instant death if he did not comply. Then, loading the fusee from his cartridge-box, he forced his prisoners down from the trees, and, armed with his two loaded muskets, drove them toward the court-house, careful, however, to keep them far apart, to prevent conversation. Passing by a spring, they requested permission to drink. "No!" replied the courageous boy, understanding their design, "you can do without it as well as myself; you shall have some by-and-by." Soon after, his father, at the head of a party of soldiers, galloped past in the road within a short distance. Tunis hallooed, but the clattering of their horses' hoofs drowned his voice. At length he reached the village, and lodged his prisoners in the county prison.