Then young Dunlap, still escaping, Running from his checked pursuer, Saw before him in the pathway Another hand-to-hand encounter. It was Stein, the burly Colonel Of the conquering Militia; It was Stein disarming Paddy, Irish Paddy of the Guardsmen; Stein disarming Surgeon Buford, Of the Lancaster Battalion. Lucky moment for the Guardsmen, All their men were lost but fourteen, Fourteen men of twenty-seven; But the man that sent the challenge, The bold Colonel of the Cornstalks, Was divided from his soldiers, Was a helpless prey before them. Taking in the situation, Gaming courage with good fortune, Dunlap plunged at once to aid them, Aid the surgeon and the private, And when three to one in number, To arrest the burly Colonel. Then they clinched and fell and struggled, Then they fought and rolled and rallied, And arose but ne'er released him, Till the man that sent the challenge Was compelled to cry surrender. "I surrender, _but don't duck me_," Pleaded hard the gallant Colonel. And the victors, showing mercy, Gathered up the scattered Guardsmen, Fourteen men of twenty-seven, And proceeded home in triumph, Took their captive to the city, To the slumb'ring, quiet city, To Lancaster on the hillside. But the scattered Guards, returning Through the river-bridge at midnight, Scared and startled Dunlap's posse, At the moment of their vict'ry, Scared and startled Stein's besiegers, Till they fled across the fences, Till they dared not bear their captive O'er the dangerous moonlit highway. On and on the captors wandered, Wandered over brush and briers, Stumbling on through creeks and by-ways, Climbing hills and wading gullies, Sometimes running, sometimes halting, Till the men were all exhausted, All but Dunlap and his captive. Paddy fell out by the wayside, Buford lagged behind to nurse him; Some lay down beside their muskets, Giving up the vain exertion; Some were nerved to struggle onward, Eager to proclaim the tidings; But the pris'ner tried to tire them, In the deviating pathways, In the windings of the by-ways, He endeavored to elude them, Till his giant-sized proportions Yielded to the boyish runners, Till his strategy and ruses Were outwitted by the youngsters. And the fair October morning Was just peeping o'er the hill-tops Of victorious Lancaster, When the tramp of full two hundred Broke upon the early watches; When two hundred men, exultant, Started forth in marching columns, With the drum and fife resounding, Started forth to meet the victors. (For, a captured Guard, escaping From the annual encampment, From the heedless Regimentals, Near the bridge in Lincoln county, Had proceeded to the city, While the moonlight yet was waning, Had aroused the sleeping townsmen With the herald of the vict'ry.) And the troops went out to meet them, Went to meet the Guards returning,