Somehow it
pleased me. Then I started the pony toward Holston.
He was tired and I was ready to drop, and those last few miles were long.
We reached the outskirts of the town perhaps a couple of hours before
sundown. A bank of clouds had spread out of the west and threatened rain.
The first person I met was Cless, and he put the pony in his corral and
hurried me round to the hotel. On the way he talked so fast and said so
much that I was bewildered before we got there. The office was full of men,
and Cless shouted to them. There was the sound of a chair scraping hard on
the floor, then I felt myself clasped by brawny arms. After that all was
rather hazy in my mind. I saw Dick and Jim and old Hiram, though, I could
not see them distinctly, and I heard them all talking, all questioning at
once. Then I was talking in a somewhat silly way, I thought, and after that
some one gave me a hot, nasty drink, and I felt the cool sheets of a bed.
The next morning all was clear. Dick came to my room and tried to keep me
in bed, but I refused to stay. We went down to breakfast, and sat at a
table with Jim and Hiram. It seemed to me that I could not answer any
questions till I had asked a thousand.
What news had they for me? Buell had escaped, after firing the slash. His
sawmill and lumber-camp and fifty thousand acres of timber had been burned.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209