“My sinful friend,” said he, “when two men get into such a scrape as this, and one of them is in your line of business, one or the other will have to die, and I don’t propose to be the one.  I haven’t finished the work which the Master has given me to do.  If you’ve any dying messages to send to anybody, I give you my word as a preacher that they shall be delivered, but you must speak quick.  What’s your name?”

“I’ll give you five hundred dollars to let me off—­you may holler for help and tie my hand, and—­”

“No use—­speak quick,” hissed the preacher—­“what’s your name?”

“Stephen Wardelow,” gasped the thief.

“What!” roared the preacher, loosening his grasp, but instantly tightening it again.

“Stephen Wardelow,” replied the thief.  “But I haven’t got any messages to send to anybody.  I haven’t a relative in the world, and nobody would care if I was dead.  I might as well go now as any time.  Hit square when yo do let me have it—­that’s all!”

“Where’s your parents?” asked the preacher.

“Dead, I reckon,” the thief answered.  “Leastways, I know mother is, and dad lived in a fever an’ aguerish place, an’ I s’pose he’s gone, too, before this.”

“Where did he live?”

“I don’t know—­some new settlement somewheres in Illinois.  I got lost in the river when I was a little boy, an’ was picked up by a tradin’-boat an’ sold for a nearly-white nigger—­I s’pose I was pretty dark.”

There was a silence; the captive lay perfectly quiet, as if expecting the fatal blow.  Suddenly a voice was heard: 

“Not wishin’ to interfere in a fair fight—­it’s me, parson, Sheriff Peters—­not wishin’ to interfere in a fair fight, I’ve been a-lookin’ on here, where I’d tracked the thief myself, and would have grabbed him if you hadn’t been about half a minute ahead of me.  And if you want to know my honest opinion—­my professional opinion—­it’s just this:  There was stuff for a splendid sheriff spiled when you went a-preachin’.  How you’d get along when it come to collectin’ taxes, I don’t know, never havin’ been at any meetin’ where you took up a collection; but when it come to an arrest, you’d be just chain-lightning ground down to a pint.  The pris’ner’s yours, and so’s all the rewards that’s offered for him, though they’re not offered for a man of the name he gives.  But, honest, now, don’t you think there’s a chance of mitigatin’ circumstances in his case?  Let’s talk it over—­I’ll help you tie him so he can’t slip you.”

The sheriff lighted a pocket-lantern and placed it in a window-frame behind him, then he tied the prisoner’s feet and legs in several places, tied his hands behind his back, sat him upon the ground with his face toward the door, cocked a pistol, and then beckoned the preacher toward a corner.  The sheriff opened his pocketbook and took out a paper, whispering as he did so: 

“I’ve carried this as a sort of a curiosity, but it may come in handy now.  Let’s see—­confound it!—­the poor old fellow is describing the child just as it was fifteen years ago.  Oh, here’s a point or two!—­’brown eyes, black hair’—­oh, bully! here’s the best thing yet!—­’first joint of the left fore-finger gone.’”