No sooner had Neuendorf issued his dreadful command than his shovel-wielding henchman thrust the blade of his implement into the mound of freshly excavated dirt and began, with fiendish deliberation, to re-fill the hole at whose bottom I lay helplessly prone. The first load of soil landed at my feet—the second upon my upper legs—the third squarely upon my chest. As the full, awful awareness of my predicament forced itself into the innermost chambers of my soul, I once again endeavored to cry aloud. My lips parted—my fear-parched tongue moved convulsively in my mouth—but before the slightest sound could issue from my lungs, another mass of dirt struck me square on the face, filling my nostrils with the peculiar odor of moist earth and causing me to spit—and choke—and cough uncontrollably. Despair—such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being—flooded through my bosom and drove the blood in torrents upon my heart.

And then, amid all my infinite miseries, came suddenly the blesséd cherub Hope, arriving in the guise of a loud, reverberant, and inexpressibly beautiful sound. It was the sound of a booming male voice, calling out in tones so strong and commanding that—even with my ears partially obstructed by the dirt which had just landed about my head—I could clearly apprehend each separate word:

“Throw down that shovel, you low-down, yellow-bellied varmint, or I will make daylight shine through you faster than God’s wrath!”

The voice was none other than that of my remarkable companion, Colonel Crockett, who had arrived—by what mysterious, providential agency I could not begin to conceive—in the very nick of time! The intensity of my emotions at this propitious intervention can scarcely be conveyed in mere words. Those who have been condemned to a ghastly, unspeakable doom, only to be delivered at the penultimate moment by a sudden and wholly unforeseen reprieve, can alone appreciate the feelings which suffused my bosom at this seemingly miraculous occurrence.

Frantically shaking the soil from my face and head, I blinked my eyes rapidly and cast my gaze upward. Directly above me, poised on the brink of the open grave, stood the shovel-wielding lout, his implement still clutched in his hands, his eyes fixed in the direction from which the frontiersman’s menacing words had emanated. All at once, the sonorous voice called out again:

“Drop that digger right now, you no-account serpent, or I will perforate your ugly carcass for a certainty. Blamed if I ain’t feeling fiercer than the latter end of an earthquake!”

Hearing the unmistakable note of savage resolve in Crockett’s warning, the ruffian wisely relinquished his implement, plunging the blade into the soft earth at his feet. As he did so, Neuendorf—who was standing out of the range of my vision—spoke up in a crudely sarcastic tone: