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The accidental discharge of Middlemore's pistol, at the very moment when Silvertail had doubled a point that kept the scene of contention from his view, caused him to raise his eyes, and then the whole truth flashed suddenly upon him.
Silvertail only replied by the sharp pricking of his ears, and a side movement, which seemed to indicate a desire to keep as much aloof as possible from a cluster of walnut trees which, interspersed with wild grape-vines, may be seen to this hour, resting in gloomy relief on the white deep sands that extend considerably in that direction.
Nor was it until some hours after dark that, seized with a sudden fit of caressing Silvertail, whose glossy neck he patted, until the tears of warm affection started to his eyes, he bethought him of the omission of which he had been guilty. Scarcely was the thought conceived, before Silvertail was again at full career, and on his way to the inn.
Even as Gattrie sat in his saddle, Silvertail was in the daily practice of munching his corn out of a small trough that stood in the yard of the inn where he usually stopped, while his rider conversed with whoever chanced to be near him the head of his cudgel resting on his ample thigh, and a glass of his favorite whiskey in his other and unoccupied hand.
D n such skulking scoundrels, I say. Whoa! Silvertail, whoa! what do yea see there, my boy, eh?"
"Good speed have they made," again mused Sampson, as he approached his home; "if indeed, as I suspect, it be them who are hiding in yonder thicket. But here we are at last. Whoa, Silvertail, whoa! and now to turn out Bill from his little wife. Bill, I say, hilloa! hilloa! Bill, hilloa!"
Old Silvertail, having become a confirmed wind-sucker, had been deported to the Mobile Veterinary Section; Tommy, the shapely bay I was now riding, had been transferred to me by our ex-adjutant, Castle, who had trained him to be well-mannered and adaptable. "A handy little horse," was Castle's stock description, until his increasing weight made Tommy too small for him.
At these moments were to be seen mothers rushing into the street to look for, and hurry away, their loitering offspring, while even adults were glad to hasten their movements, in order to escape collision with the formidable Sampson; not that either apprehended the slightest act of personal violence from the old man, for he was harmless of evil as a child, but because they feared the polished hoofs of Silvertail, which shone amid the clouds of dust they raised as he passed, like rings of burnished silver.
After galloping about a mile, the old man found the feet of Silvertail burying themselves momentarily deeper in the sands which form the road near Elliott's Point.
D n you, you brute, do you mean to throw me?" The restlessness of Silvertail, despite of his rider's caresses had been visibly increasing as they approached the dark cluster of walnuts. Arrived opposite to this, his ears and tail erect, he had evinced even more than restlessness alarm: and something, that did not meet the eye of his rider, caused him to take a sideward spring of several feet.
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