"Cephas, if you tell Gabriel what I said while Eugenia Claiborne was standing there, all ears, I'll never forgive you." Nan was at her wit's end.

"Tell him that!" cried Cephas; "why, I wouldn't tell him that, not for all the world. I'll tell him nothing."

"Please, Cephas," said Nan. "Tell him"--she paused, and threw her hair away from her pale face--"tell him that if he doesn't come home soon, I shall die!" Then her face turned from pale to red, and she laughed loudly.

"Well, I certainly sha'n't tell him that," said Cephas.

"I didn't think you would," said Nan. "You are a nice little boy, and I am going to kiss you good-bye. If you don't have something sweet to tell me when you come back, I'll think you detest me--wasn't that Gabriel's word? Poor Gabriel! he's in prison, and here we are joking about him."

"I'm not joking about him!" exclaimed Cephas.

"Just as much as I am," said Nan; and then she leaned over and kissed Cephas's freckled face, leaving it very red after the operation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

_Mr. Sanders Visits Some of His Old Friends_

It will be observed by those who are accustomed to make note of trifles, that the chronicler, after packing Cephas off in a barouche with the handsome Captain Falconer, still manages to retain him in Shady Dale.

For the sake of those who may be puzzled over the matter, let us say that it is a mistake of the reporter. That is the way our public men dispose of their unimportant inconsistencies--and the reporter, for his part, can say that the trouble is due to a typographical error. The truth is, however, that when a cornfield chronicler finds himself entangled in a rush of events, even if they are minor ones, he feels compelled to resort to that pattern of the "P. S." which is so comforting to the lady writers, and so captivating to their readers.

Mr. Sanders is supposed to be on his way to Savannah on the same train with Cephas and Captain Falconer, supposing the train to be on time.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to give a further account of his movements before he started on the journey that was to prove to be such an important event in Gabriel's career.

On the third morning after the arrest of the young men, Mrs. Lumsden expressed a desire to see Mr. Sanders, but he was nowhere to be found.

Many sympathetic persons, including Nan Dorrington, joined in the search, but it proved to be a fruitless one. As a matter of fact, Mr.

Sanders had gone to bed early the night before, but a little after midnight he awoke with a start. This was such an unusual experience that he permitted it to worry him. He had had no dream, he had heard no noise; yet he had suddenly come out of a sound and refreshing sleep with every faculty alert. He struck a match, and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to one.

"I wish, plague take 'em!" he said with a snort, "that somebody would whirl in an' make a match that wouldn't smifflicate the whole house an'

lot."

He lit the candle, and then proceeded to draw on his clothes. In the course of this proceeding, he lay back on the bed with his hands under his head. He lay thus for some minutes, and then suddenly jumped to his feet with an exclamation. He put on his clothes in a hurry, and went out to the stables, where he gave his horse a good feed--seventeen ears of corn and two bundles of fodder.

Then he returned to the house, and rummaged around until he found a pitcher of b.u.t.termilk and a pone of corn-bread, which he disposed of deliberately, and with great relish. This done, he changed his clothes, subst.i.tuting for those he wore every day the suit he wore on Sundays and holidays. When all these preparations were complete, the hands of his watch stood at quarter past three. He had delayed and dillydallied in order to give his horse time to eat. The animal had taken advantage of the opportunity, for when Mr. Sanders went to the stables, the Racking Roan was playfully tossing the bare cobs about in the trough with his flexible upper lip.

"Be jigged ef your appet.i.te ain't mighty nigh as good as mine," he remarked, whereupon the roan playfully bit at him. "Don't do that, my son," protested Mr. Sanders. "Can't you see I've got on my Sunday duds?"

To bridle and saddle the horse was a matter of a few moments only, and when Mr. Sanders mounted, the spirited horse was so evidently in for a frolic that he was going at a three-minute gait by the time the rider had thrown a leg over the saddle.

A horseback ride, when the weather is fine and the sun is shining, is a very pleasing experience, but it is not to be compared to a ride in the dark, provided you are on good terms with your horse, and are familiar with the country. You surrender yourself entirely to the creature's movements, and if he is a horse equipped with courage, common-sense and energy, you are lifted entirely out of your everyday life into the regions of romance and derring-do--whatever that may be. There is no other feeling like it, no other pleasure to be compared to it; all the rest smell of the earth.

"I'm sorter glad I lit that match," Mr. Sanders remarked to the horse.

"It's like gittin' a whiff of the Bad Place, an' then breathin' the fresh air of heav'n." The reply of the roan was a sharp affirmative snort.

The sun was just rising when Mr. Sanders rode into Halcyondale.

Coincident with his arrival, the train from Atlanta came in with a tremendous clatter. There was much creaking and clanking as it slowed up at the modest station. It paused just long enough for the mail-bag and a trunk to be thrown off with a bang, and then it went puffing away. Short as the pause had been, one of the pa.s.sengers, in the person of Colonel Bolivar Blasengame, had managed to escape from it. The Colonel, with his valise in his hand, paused to watch the train out of sight, and then leisurely made his way toward his home. To reach that point, he was compelled to cross the public square, and as he emerged from the side street leading to the station, he met Mr. Sanders, who had also been watching the train.

"h.e.l.lo, Colonel, how are you? We belong apparently to the early bird society."

"Good-morning, Mr. Sanders," replied the Colonel, with a smile of friendly welcome. "What wind has blown you over here?"

"Why, I want to see Major Perdue. You know we have had trouble in our settlement."

"And you want to see Tomlin because you have had trouble; but why is it, Mr. Sanders, that your people never think of me when you have trouble?

Am I losing caste in your community?"

"Well, you know, Colonel, you haven't been over sence the year one; an'

then the Major is kinder kin to one of the chaps that's been took off."

"Exactly; but did it ever occur to you that whoever is kin to Tomlin is a little kin to me," remarked the Colonel. "Tomlin is my brother-in-law--But where are you going now?"

"Well, I thought I would go to the tavern, have my hoss put up an' fed, git a snack of somethin' to eat, an' then call on the Major."

"You hadn't heard, I reckon, that the tavern is closed, and the livery-stable broke up," said the Colonel, by way of giving the visitor some useful information.

At that moment a negro came out on the veranda of the hotel--only the older people called it a tavern--and rang the bell that meant breakfast in half an hour.

"What's that?" inquired Mr. Sanders, though he knew well enough.

"It's pure habit," replied the Colonel. "That n.i.g.g.e.r has been ringing the bell so long that he can't quit it. Anyhow, you can't go to the tavern, and you can't go to Tomlin's. He's got a mighty big family to support, Tomlin has. He's fixin' up to have a son-in-law, and he's already got a daughter, and old Minervy Ann, who brags that she can eat as much as she can cook. No, you can't impose on Tomlin."

"Then, what in the world will I do?" Mr. Sanders asked with a laugh. He was perfectly familiar with the tactics of the Colonel.

"Well, there wasn't any small-pox or measles at my house when I left day before yesterday. Suppose we go there, and see if there's anything the matter. If the stable hasn't blown away or burned down, maybe you'll find a place for your horse, and then we can scuffle around maybe, and find something to eat. That's a fine animal you're on. He's the one, I reckon, that walked the stringer, after the bridge had been washed away.

I never could swallow that tale, Mr. Sanders."

"Nor me nuther," replied Mr. Sanders. "All I know is that he took me across the river one dark night after a fresh, an' some folks on t'other side wouldn't believe I had come across. They got to the place whar the bridge ought to 'a' been long before dark, and they found it all gone except one stringer. I seed the stringer arterwards, but I never could make up my mind that my hoss walked it wi' me a-straddle of his back."

"Still, if he was my horse," Colonel Blasengame remarked, "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for him, and I reckon you've heard it rumoured around that I haven't got any more money than two good steers could pull."

Mr. Sanders turned his horse's head in the direction that Colonel Blasengame was going, and when they arrived at his home, he stopped at the gate. "Mr. Sanders," he said, taking out his watch, "I'll bet you two dollars and a half to a horn b.u.t.ton that breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, and that everything will be fixed as if company was expected."

And it was true. By the time the horse had been put in the stable and fed, breakfast was ready, and when Mr. Sanders was ushered into the room, Mrs. Blasengame was sitting in her place at the table pouring out coffee. She was a frail little woman, but her eyes were bright with energy, and she greeted the unexpected guest as cordially as if he had come on her express invitation. She had little to say at any time, but when she spoke her words were always to the purpose.

"What did you accomplish?" she asked her husband, after Mr. Sanders, as in duty bound, had praised the coffee and the biscuit, and the meal was well under way.

"Nothing, honey; not a thing in the world. I thought the boys had been carried to Atlanta, but they are at Fort Pulaski."

Mrs. Blasengame said nothing more, and the Colonel was for talking about something else, but the curiosity of Mr. Sanders was aroused.

"What boys was you referrin' to, Colonel?" he asked.

"I don't like to tell you, Mr. Sanders," replied Colonel Blasengame, "but if you'll take no offence, I'll say that the boys are from a little one-horse country settlement called Shady Dale, a place where the people are asleep day and night. A parcel of Yankees went over there the other night, s.n.a.t.c.hed four boys out of their beds, and walked off with them."

"That's so," Mr. Sanders a.s.sented.