We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with
anything stronger than constables and maybe some lackadaisical
bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the _Weekly Farmers' Budget_.
So, it looked good.
We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named
Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage
fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.
The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the
colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you
want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt
down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I
tell you.
About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a
dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave.
There we stored provisions. One evening after sundown, we drove in a
buggy past old Dorset's house. The kid was in the street, throwing
rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.
"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag of candy
and a nice ride?"
The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.
"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Bill,
climbing over the wheel.
That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at
last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away.
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