He suddenly slackened his pace, and with a vicious tug settled his wool hat more firmly upon his small skull.

He went now at a dog trot and Oscar was closing upon him rapidly; then, quite near the sheds, Zmai wheeled about and charged his pursuer headlong.

At the moment he turned, Oscar's revolver bit keenly into the night.

Captain Claiborne, looking toward the slope, saw the flash before the hounds at the stables answered the report.
At the shot Zmai cried aloud in his curiously small voice and clapped his hands to his head.
"Stop; I want the letter!" shouted Oscar in German.

The man turned slowly, as though dazed, and, with a hand still clutching his head, half-stumbled and half-ran toward the sheds, with Oscar at his heels.
Claiborne called to the negro stable-men to quiet the dogs, snatched a lantern, and ran away through the pergola to the end of the garden and thence into the pasture beyond.