couple of their number to guard him and his family, and proceed to search the house for themselves. After an absence of about half an hour, during which time all the upper rooms are thoroughly ransacked, the party return with very little booty and again threaten the unfortunate proprietor, who can only tell them just what he did before, that he has nothing to satisfy them; which answer is in all probability perfectly true, as previous visitors of the same kind had helped themselves to everything worth carrying away on the premises.

The Skinners, therefore -- this particular band happened to be of that persuasion -- thought, or at all events acted, as though all that was left for them to do was to carry out their threat of hanging the farmer. After warming themselves well before the great log fire, they obtained a rope and compelled him to leave his comfortable hearth and walk before them into the cold winter night, with the pleasant prospect of being hanged from the first convenient tree. Silently they walked for a few moments, when the Skinners were much surprised by hearing their victim burst out laughing. They were curious as to the cause of his merriment, when he informed them that he was laughing because he thought it such a funny idea to suppose that hanging him would 1111 their pockets. This remark

abe ''Beutral Ground"

set the robbers to thinking that there might be a little absurdity in what they were doing. After assuring themselves that he was not shamming in regard to having nothing, they let him return to his fireside, much to the satistaction of himself and family. In the morning, he was not much astonished that his few remaining cattle were gone, but was, on the whole, glad to get off so easily.