for their relations--the Shepherdsons was too strong for them.  I asked him what was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia.  He said they'd got across the river and was safe.  I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him--I hain't ever heard anything like it. All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men had slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their horses!  The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as they swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and singing out, “Kill them, kill them!”  It made me so sick I most fell out of the tree.  I ain't a-going to tell _all_ that happened--it would make me sick again if I was to do that.  I wished I hadn't ever come ashore that night to see such things.  I ain't ever going to get shut of them--lots of times I dream about them. I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down. Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the trouble was still a-going on.  I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess wouldn't ever happened. When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and got away as quick as I could.  I cried a little when I was covering up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me. It was just dark now.  I never went near the house, but struck through t