Seth considered for some time in silence, turned his plug of tobacco in his mouth, expectorated two or three times, as was his custom when thinking, and then said, "That's not altogether an easy question to answer. I've been so near wiped out such scores of times, that it ain't no easy job to say which was the downright nearest. In thinking it over, I conclude sometimes that one go was the nearest, sometimes that another; it ain't no ways easy to say now. But I think that, at the time, I never so much felt that Seth Harper's time for going down had come, as I did in an affair near San Louis."

"And how was that, Seth? Do tell us about it," Maud said.

"It's rather a long story, that is," the Yankee said.

"All the better, Seth," Charley said; "at least all the better as far as we are concerned, if you don't mind telling it."

"No, I don't mind, no how," Seth answered. "I'll just think it over, and see where to begin."

There was a silence for a few minutes, and the young Hardys composed themselves comfortably for a good long sitting, and then Seth Harper began his story.