I was so excited that my lawless fancy tortured me to ask my two men all manner of facetious questions about their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, considering the order they had received, it was but common prudence to keep still.

When everything had been taken from me,--watch, money, and a multitude of trifles of small value,--I supposed I was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm my feet and stir up some latent courage--but instantly all pistols were at my head, and the order came again: They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict orders to keep his hands above his head, too, and then the chief highwayman said: "Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil Sheridan, you hide behind that other one; Stonewall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush there.

Keep your pistols bearing on these fellows, and if they take down their hands within ten minutes, or move a single peg, let them have it!" Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the several ambushes, and the other three disappeared down the road toward Virginia.
It was depressingly still, and miserably cold.

Now this whole thing was a practical joke, and the robbers were personal friends of ours in disguise, and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet of us during the whole operation, listening.

Mike knew all this, and was in the joke, but I suspected nothing of it.