I hunted all the new rope in the house, and they took
the firearms away from the robbers, and drove 'em off to jail, and
the robbers turned out to be three of the most desp'rate characters
in the State, and they're in prison now for a long term of years."
"What did you do the rest of the night?" inquired Grandma Padgett.
"O, I locked everything tight again, and laid down till daylight,"
replied the toll-woman, with somewhat boastful indifference. "Folks
haven't got done talkin' yet about that little jail in my back yard,"
she added, laughing. "They came from miles around to look into it and
see where the men pretty nigh kicked the boards loose."
This narrative was turned over and over by the children after they
resumed their journey, and the toll-woman and her cave had faded out
in distance. If they saw a deserted cabin among the hollows of the
woods, it became the meeting place of robbers. Now that aunt
Corinne's nephew turned his mind to the subject, he began to think
the whole expedition out West would be a failure--an experience not
worth alluding to in future times--unless the family were well robbed
on the way. Jonathan and Thrusty Ellen, in the great overland colony,
would have Indians to shudder at, a desert and mountains to cross,
besides the tremendous Mississippi River.
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