“He set there for a long while, thinkin’, and then he says he cal’lates he must have dozed off.  At any rate, next thing he knew he was settin’ up straight in his chair, listenin’.  It seemed to him that he’d heard a sound in the kitchen underneath.

“He looked out of the window, and right away he noticed somethin’.  ’Twas a beautiful, clear moonlight night, and the high board fence around the buildin’s showed black against the white sand.  And in that white strip was a ten-foot white gape.  Nate had shut that gate afore he went upstairs.  Who’d opened it?  Then he heard the noise in the kitchen again.  Somebody was talkin’ down there.

“Nate got up and tiptoed acrost the room.  He was in his stockin’ feet, so he didn’t make a sound.  He reached into the corner and took out his old duck gun.  It was loaded, both barrels.  Nate cocked the gun and crept down the back stairs.

“There was a lamp burnin’ low on the kitchen table, and there, in a couple of chairs hauled as close together as they could be, set that Olivia niece and Augustus.  They was in a clove hitch again and whisperin’ soft and slushy.

“My! but Scudder was b’ilin’!  He give one jump and landed in the middle of that kitchen floor.

“‘You—­you—­you!’ he yelled, wavin’ the shotgun.  ’You’re back here, are you?  You know what I told you I’d do to you?  Well, now, I’ll do it.’

“The pair of ’em had jumped about as far as Nate had, only the opposite way.  Augustus was a paralyzed statue, but Olivia had her senses with her.

“‘Run, Augustus!’ she screamed.  ‘He’ll shoot you.  Run!’

“And then, with a screech like a siren whistle, Augustus commenced to run.  Nate was between him and the outside door, so he bolted headfirst into the dining room.  And after him went Nate Scudder, so crazy mad he didn’t know what he was doin’.

“’Twas pitch dark in the dining room, but through it they went rattlety bang! dishes smashin’, chairs upsettin’ and ‘hurrah, boys!’ to pay gen’rally.  Then through the best parlor and into the front hall.

“I cal’late Nate would have had him at the foot of the front stairs if it hadn’t been for Galileo.  That cat had been asleep on the sofy, and the noise and hullabaloo had stirred him up till he was as crazy as the rest of ’em.  He run right under Nate’s feet and down went Nate sprawlin’ and both barrels of the shotgun bust loose like a couple of cannon.

“Galileo took for tall timber, whoopin’ anthems.  Up them front stairs went Augustus, screechin’ shrill, like a woman; he was sure Nate meant to murder him now.  And after him his uncle went on all fours, swearin’ tremendous.

“Then ’twas through one bedroom after another, and each one more crowded with noisy, smashable things than that previous.  Nate said he could remember the professor roarin’ ‘Fire!’ and ‘Help!’ as the two of ’em bumped into his bed, but they didn’t stop—­they was too busy.  The whole length of the house upstairs they traveled, then through the ell, then the woodshed loft, and finally out into the upper story of the barn.  And there Nate knew he had him.  The ladder was down.