“No use,” said the officer—“sooner or later you must be taken; dog-face Billy Towns is here, and he’ll go your security.” “Keep off, I tell you, Ellis; I ain’t safe to-day—the old woman’s coffee was cold this mornin’, and it fretted me. If you’ve got anything agin me, keep it ’till Court—I’ll be thar—‘waive all formalities,’ you know!” “I will waive nothing,” replied the sheriff, advancing: “I’ll put you whar I can find you when wanted.” Suggs drew an old revolving pistol, whereupon the sheriff paused. “The blood,” shouted the Captain, “of the High Sheriff of Tallapoosy County be upon his own head. If he crowds on to me, I give fair warnin’ I’ll discharge this _revolten’_ pistol seven several and distinct times, as nigh into the curl of his forehead, as the natur’ of the case will admit.” For a moment the sheriff was intimidated; but recollecting that Captain Suggs had a religious dread of carrying _loaded_ fire-arms about his person, although he often sported them uncharged for effect, he briskly resumed his stride, and the Captain, hurling the “revolter” at his head, at once fell into a “killing pace” towards the rack where stood his pony, “Button.” The sheriff’s horse, by chance, was tied at the same rack, but a wag of a fellow, catching Suggs’s idea, unhitched the pony, and threw the bridle over its neck, and held it ready to be mounted; so that the Captain was in his saddle, and his nag at half speed, ere the sheriff put his foot in the stirrup. Here they go! clattering down the street “like an armed troop!” Now the blanket-coat of the invincible Captain disappears round Luke Davenport’s corner! The sheriff is hard after him! “Go it, Ellis!” “Go it Suggs!” “Whoop! whoop! hurrah!” Again the skirts of the blanket-coat become visible, on the rise by M’Cleudon’s, whisking about the pony’s rump! “Lay whip, Sheriff; your bay’s lazy!” The old bay gains on Button, however. But now they turn down the long hill towards Johnson’s Mill creek. Right sturdily the pony bears his master on, but the bay is overhauling him fast! They near the creek! He has him! no!—the horse runs against the pony—falls himself—projects his rider into the thicket on the right—and knocks the pony and its rider into the stream. It happened, that, by the concussion or some other cause, the girth of Captain Suggs’s saddle was broken; so that neither himself nor his saddle was precisely on Button’s back when they reached the water. It was no time to stop for trifles, however; so leaving the saddle in the creek, the Captain bestrode the bare back of his panting animal, and made the best of his way onward. He knew that the Sheriff would still follow, and he therefore turned from the road at right angles, skirted the creek swamp for a mile, and then took a direction by which he would reach the road again, four or five miles from the scene of his recent submersion.