to the pockets of the travellers, or to appropriate their coats and boots to the use of the rebel army.

“Halt!” said the nondescript gentleman at the head of the guerillas.

“Your business?” demanded Major Riggleston.

“Sorry to trouble you, gentlemen, but you are my prisoners,” said the chief guerilla, as blandly as though he had been in a drawing-room.

“Who are you, gentlemen?” asked the major.

“I don’t like to be uncivil to a well-dressed gentleman like yourself; but I haven’t learned my catechism lately, and can’t stop to be questioned. In one word, do you surrender?”

“Allow me a moment to consult my friends.”

“Only one moment.”

“Don’t you think we had better surrender, Captain Somers?”

“I thought you were a fighting man,” replied Somers.

“I am, when circumstances will admit of it; but they are two to our one.”

“Just now you thought we were a match for at least twenty of these fellows.”

“Time’s up, gentlemen,” said the dashing guerilla.

“What do you say, Captain Somers?”

“You can do as you please; I don’t surrender, for one.”

“But this is madness.”

“I don’t care what it is; I am going to fight my way through.”

“Do you surrender?” demanded the impatient chief of the horsemen.

“No!” replied Somers, in his most decided tone.

“Then you are a dead man!” And the guerilla raised his pistol.

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