The setting is a rural area of northern Alabama, an area which would have been very rustic at the time of the story, the turn of the twentieth century.
Summit, Alabama, is a town located in the northern part of the state, where the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains are located. Sam, the narrator, says that the town is "flat as flannel cake," although in reality the elevation of Summit is 915 feet. Perhaps Sam's is not really an error of perception, but rests in the fact that there is a flat plateau in this part of Alabama which is known as Sand Mountain. Several small towns lie on this plateau, and Summit may be one of them--elevated, but flat. Interestingly, this may be an early clue that things will not be as they seem for the two con-men, Sam and Bill.
There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious [sic] and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.
In this small town of apparent rubes, there is a wealthy banker named Ebenezer Dorset, who has a son. Sam and Bill decide that they will kidnap this boy and hold him for ransom. In such a rustic community, they speculate that there is probably only one or two constables and some phlegmatic bloodhounds to give chase to them. There are also any number of caves in which the men can store things and hide. It seems a perfect place for their crime.
While their plan seems foolproof, they have not planned for a boy that is exceptional in many ways. On the evening that Sam and Bill rent a horse and buggy in order to effect the kidnapping, Johnny Dorset is in the street playing. As they pull up, Johnny hits Bill on his head with a brick; then, he puts up a terrible fight as the kidnappers struggle to get him in the buggy. Nevertheless, the men head to their camp. Once there, Bill and Johnny remain, but Sam must return the horse and buggy to town and walk miles back to camp.
While Sam is gone for a some time because of the rugged terrain, Johnny dominates the situation on the mountain: He pretends he is Red Chief and inflicts untold pain on Bill by kicking him and hitting him with sticks. Of course, in this isolated location, no one can hear Bill's screams of terror.
Further, the camp becomes the scene of more ironic reversals: Red Chief talks incessantly, preventing the men from sleeping; he attempts to scalp Bill at daybreak, and he continues his physical abuse of the men. "Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life," remarks Sam. He and Bill are afraid to sleep lest they be kicked or hit over the head, and there would be no one to rescue them.
After a few torturous days, Sam says he will venture out of the cave and go to the peak of the mountain where he can look down on the town.
Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents.
This peaceful, bucolic setting baffles Sam as he realizes that Johnny's absence seems to make no apparent difference. This condition is, indeed, disturbing to the two kidnappers, who wish to be rid of the red-haired terror. Finally, Sam decides that they should mail a ransom note to Mr. Dorset. Later, after waiting for the reply, Sam ventures down the mountain and retrieves the response from Dorset. In it the banker offers to claim his son, provided that they pay him $250 and bring the boy back under cover of night. Otherwise, he writes, he may not be able to protect the men from the townspeople who believe the boy is lost. Fortunately for the men, Dorset implies, it is a sleepy town that he lives in, so no one will detect the men's clandestine late night deal.
A desperate Bill begs Sam to accept these conditions. They comply the next evening and count out the money to Mr. Dorset. He tells the two men that he can only hold Johnny for about ten minutes, and, hearing this, Bill runs as though a wild animal chases him. At the end, Sam remarks that he had to go a mile and a half outside Summit before Bill slowed enough for him to catch his partner.
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