Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it.

I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was after anybody I judged it was ME--or maybe Jim.

I was about to dig out from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung out and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs a-coming.

They wanted to jump right in, but I says: "Don't you do it.

I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs off the scent." They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting.