Me and Caligula spent the next three days investigating the bunch of mountains into which we proposed to kidnap Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham. We finally selected an upright slice of topography covered with bushes and trees that you could only reach by a secret path that we cut out up the side of it. And the only way to reach the mountain was to follow up the bend of a branch that wound among the .  
Then I took in hand an important subdivision of the . I went up to Atlanta on the train and laid in a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar supply of the most gratifying and efficient lines of grub that money could buy. I always was an admirer of in their more palliative and revised stages. and hominy are not only inartistic to my stomach, but they give indigestion to my moral sentiments. And I thought of Colonel Jackson T. Rockingham, president of the Sunrise & Edenville Tap Railroad, and how he would miss the luxury of his home fare as is so famous among wealthy Southerners. So I sunk half of mine and Caligula's capital in as elegant a layout of fresh and canned provisions as Burdick Harris or any other professional kidnappee ever saw in a camp.
 
I put another hundred in a couple of cases of Bordeaux, two quarts of cognac, two hundred Havana regalias with gold bands, and a camp stove and stools and folding cots. I wanted Colonel Rockingham to be comfortable; and I hoped after he gave up the ten thousand dollars he would give me and Caligula as good a name for gentlemen and entertainers as the Greek man did the friend of his that made the United States his bill collector against Africa.
 
When the goods came down from Atlanta, we hired a , moved them up on the little mountain, and established camp. And then we laid for the colonel.
 
We caught him one morning about two miles out from Mountain Valley, on his way to look after some of his burnt umber farm land. He was an elegant old gentleman, as thin and tall as a rod, with frazzled shirt-cuffs and specs on a black string. We explained to him, brief and easy, what we wanted; and Caligula showed him, careless, the handle of his forty-five under his coat.
 
"What?" says Colonel Rockingham. "Bandits in Perry County, Georgia! I shall see that the board of immigration and public improvements hears of this!"
 
"Be so unfoolhardy as to climb into that buggy," says Caligula, "by order of the board of perforation and public depravity. This is a business meeting, and we're anxious to sine qua non."
 
We drove Colonel Rockingham over the mountain and up the side of it as far as the buggy could go. Then we tied the horse, and took our prisoner on foot up to the camp.
 
"Now, colonel," I says to him, "we're after the , me and my partner; and no harm will come to you if the King of Mor—if your friends send up the dust. In the mean time we are gentlemen the same as you. And if you give us your word not to try to escape, the freedom of the camp is yours."
 
"I give you my word," says the colonel.
 
"All right," says I; "and now it's eleven o'clock, and me and Mr. Polk will proceed to inculcate the occasion with a few well-timed trivialities in the way of grub."
 
"Thank you," says the colonel; "I believe I could a slice of bacon and a plate of hominy."
 
"But you won't," says I . "Not in this camp. We soar in higher regions than them occupied by your but dish."
 
While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats and went in for a little de luxe just to show him. Caligula was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a or fricassee a couple of as easy as a woman could make ............