Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/341

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Tompkins sneaked up as close as he could without alarming the fellow, and then he covered him with his revolver and ordered him to throw up both his hands.

"Don't shoot," says the man, "don't shoot. This is my store. I left something in it that I have to get, and I forgot my key."

"That may be all so," says Tompkins, "but you can explain that to the judge. Your actions are suspicious. You'll come along with me."

"Who are you?" says the fellow.

"I'm an officer of the law," answers Tompkins, showing his star.

"Well, if that don't beat the mischief!" says the man, and then he burst out laughing. "Arrested for breaking into my own store!" says he.

"That's all right," says Tompkins, "but you go along in front of me, and don't you try to get away or give me trouble, or you'll be lame."

So they went on, the fellow marching before and my partner right behind him. As they were going along the fellow says:

Say, this is rich. By gum! Arrested for burgling my own store! Say, officer, this reminds me of a case that happened an uncle of mine in the war. He was in Sherman's army when it was going from Atlanta to the sea, you know. They had made camp one night down in southern Georgia somewhere, and my uncle, with a lot of other boys, concluded to go out foraging. Victuals weren't so mighty plenty, and there was a sort of an understanding that when the boys got a chance, they could shift for themselves. So this night, about midnight, Uncle George and six or seven others stole out of camp and made for a farmhouse they had seen that day back a piece on the road. After an hour's walk they got to the place, and succeeded in bagging a couple of dozen chickens. They wrung their necks, and put them in a sack, and started for camp. They hadn't gone far till they heard horses' hoofs behind them, and thinking the guerrillas were after them, they broke for the woods on either side of the road. They got separated, and it was nearly daybreak before Uncle George came to our sentries. He was alone, for he had lost the rest of the boys in their run through the timber. The sentry stopped him, and asked him for