But we woke up fin’lly, and the way we flew round that catboat was a caution.  I laid into them halyards, and I had the mainsail up to the peak afore Jonadab got the anchor clear of the bottom.  Then I jumped to the tiller, and the Patience M. took after that skiff like a pup after a tomcat.  We run alongside the wharf just as Booth Hank climbed over the stringpiece.

“Get after him, Barzilla!” hollers Cap’n Jonadab.  “I’ll make her fast.”

Well, I hadn’t took more’n three steps when I see ‘twas goin’ to be a long chase.  Montague unfurled them thin legs of his and got over the ground something wonderful.  All you could see was a pile of dust and coat tails flapping.

Up on the wharf we went and round the corner into a straggly kind of road with old-fashioned houses on both sides of it.  Nobody in the yards, nobody at the windows; quiet as could be, except that off ahead, somewheres, there was music playing.

That road was a quarter of a mile long, but we galloped through it so fast that the scenery was nothing but a blur.  Booth was gaining all the time, but I stuck to it like a good one.  We took a short cut through a yard, piled over a fence and come out into another road, and up at the head of it was a crowd of folks—­men and women and children and dogs.

“Stop thief!” I hollers, and ’way astern I heard Jonadab bellering:  “Stop thief!”

Montague dives headfirst for the crowd.  He fell over a baby carriage, and I gained a tack ’fore he got up.  He wa’n’t more’n ten yards ahead when I come busting through, upsetting children and old women, and landed in what I guess was the main street of the place and right abreast of a parade that was marching down the middle of it.

First there was the band, four fellers tooting and banging like fo’mast hands on a fishing smack in a fog.  Then there was a big darky toting a banner with “Jenkins’ Unparalleled Double Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company, No. 2,” on it in big letters.  Behind him was a boy leading two great, savage looking dogs—­bloodhounds, I found out afterwards—­by chains.  Then come a pony cart with Little Eva and Eliza’s child in it; Eva was all gold hair and beautifulness.  And astern of her was Marks the Lawyer, on his donkey.  There was lots more behind him, but these was all I had time to see just then.

Now, there was but one way for Booth Hank to get acrost that street, and that was to bust through the procession.  And, as luck would have it, the place he picked out to cross was just ahead of the bloodhounds.  And the first thing I knew, them dogs stretched out their noses and took a long sniff, and then bust out howling like all possessed.  The boy, he tried to hold ’em, but ’twas no go.  They yanked the chains out of his hands and took after that poet as if he owed ’em something.  And every one of the four million other dogs that was in the crowd on the sidewalks fell into line, and such howling and yapping and scampering and screaming you never heard.