"Say one word un you're a dead man," said Zeke Tucker, pressing the cold muzzle of his wagon-spoke close to the sheriff's head. These melodramatic words were, I am glad to say, a mere plagiarism. In the absence of anything better, Zeke repeated the speech of a highwayman in an old-fashioned novel he had heard Mrs. Britton read on Sunday afternoons. Then he added on his own account: "We won't have no tricks; d' yeh h'yer?" "They's mor' 'n forty uv us," said Bob, "un we want them air keys right straight." "If I had half a chance I'd ruther die than give 'em up,"--this was all that Plunkett could remember of the defiant speech he was to have made on this occasion,--"but there they air, at the head of my bed"; and a cold shudder went over him as Zeke again touched him ominously with the end of the wagon-spoke. The sheriff's wife, though she had every assurance of the secret friendliness of the mob, now began to weep. "Not a word!" said Bob, who was continually scuffling his feet, in order, like Hannibal and other great commanders, to make his forces seem more numerous than they were. "We won't hurt you, Mrs. Plunkett, ef you keep still; but ef you make a noise while we're gone, the boys outside might shoot." The woman became silent. "Some of our men'll be left to guard your house till our business is finished," said Bob to the sheriff, who lay limp on the floor, growing internally angry that the Broad Run boys should not show more respect for his dignity. "Don't you move or make any soun', fer yer life," added Bob when he reached the top of the stairs, down which he descended with racket enough for three or four. As they left the house with the keys, Bob and Zeke gave orders in a low voice to an imaginary guard at the door.