till they're ransomed to death; and a bothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying to get loose.” “How you talk, Ben Rogers.  How can they get loose when there's a guard over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?” “A guard!  Well, that _is_ good.  So somebody's got to set up all night and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them.  I think that's foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as they get here?” “Because it ain't in the books so--that's why.  Now, Ben Rogers, do you want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea.  Don't you reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct thing to do?  Do you reckon _you_ can learn 'em anything?  Not by a good deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way.” “All right.  I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow.  Say, do we kill the women, too?” “Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on.  Kill the women?  No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that.  You fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any more.” “Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it. Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say.” Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't want to be a robber any more. So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets.  But Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people. Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted to begi