“Bing!  Bang!  Boom!  Bing—­bing!  Bang—­bang!  Boom—­boom! 
Bing—­bang—­boom!”

Lieutenant Skaggs and his reserves heard the beat of running feet down the Gap.

“They’ve gobbled Boggs,” he said, and the reserve rushed after him as he fled.  The army heard the beat of their coming feet.

“They’ve gobbled Skaggs,” the army said.

Then was there bedlam as the army fled—­a crashing through bushes—­a splashing into the river, the rumble of mule wagons, yells of terror, swift flying shapes through the pale moonlight.  Flitter Bill heard the din as he stood by his barn door.

“They’ve gobbled the army,” said Flitter Bill, and he, too, fled like a shadow down the valley.

Nature never explodes such wild and senseless energy as when she lets loose a mob in a panic.  With the army, it was each man for himself and devil take the hindmost; and the flight of the army was like a flight from the very devil himself.  Lieutenant Boggs, whose feet were the swiftest in the hills, outstripped his devoted band.  Lieutenant Skaggs, being fat and slow, fell far behind his reserve, and dropped exhausted on a rock for a moment to get his breath.  As he rose, panting, to resume flight, a figure bounded out of the darkness behind him, and he gathered it in silently and went with it to the ground, where both fought silently in the dust until they rolled into the moonlight and each looked the other in the face.

“That you, Jim Skaggs?”

“That you, Tom Boggs?”

Then the two lieutenants rose swiftly, but a third shape bounded into the road—­a gigantic figure—­Black Tom!  With a startled yell they gathered him in—­one by the waist, the other about the neck, and, for a moment, the terrible Kentuckian—­it could be none other—­swung the two clear of the ground, but the doughty lieutenants hung to him.  Boggs trying to get his knife and Skaggs his pistol, and all went down in a heap.

“I surrender—­I surrender!” It was the giant who spoke, and at the sound of his voice both men ceased to struggle, and, strange to say, no one of the three laughed.

“Lieutenant Boggs,” said Captain Wells, thickly, “take yo’ thumb out o’ my mouth.  Lieutenant Skaggs, leggo my leg an’ stop bitin’ me.”

“Sh—­sh—­sh—­” said all three.

The faint swish of bushes as Lieutenant Boggs’s ten men scuttled into the brush behind them—­the distant beat of the army’s feet getting fainter ahead of them, and then silence—­dead, dead silence.

“Sh—­sh—­sh!”

With the red streaks of dawn Captain Mayhall Wells was pacing up and down in front of Flitter Bill’s store, a gaping crowd about him, and the shattered remnants of the army drawn up along Roaring Fork in the rear.  An hour later Flitter Bill rode calmly in.

“I stayed all night down the valley,” said Flitter Bill.  “Uncle Jim Richmond was sick.  I hear you had some trouble last night, Captain Wells.”  The captain expanded his chest.