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But come with me to bank this mornin' an' I'll prove it all to ye." Something in his voice made Franklin wheel around and look at him. "Oh, do be serious, Battersleigh," said he. "It's sayrious I am, Ned, I till ye. Luk at me, boy. Do ye not see the years droppin' from me? Succiss! Revinge! Cash! Earth holds no more for Batty. I've thim all, an' I'm contint.
"Sack!" cried Battersleigh, offended. "'Sack! say you, but I say, 'White! Look ye, the history of a man is something sacred. 'Sack! say you, but I say, 'White! A strip of this at me neck and at me wrist; me hat, an' me sabre and me ridin' whip I r-ride up to the dure. I dismount. I throw me rein to the man. I inter the hall and place me hat and gloves in order as they should be.
The bed, a very narrow one, had but meagre covering, and during the winter months its single blanket rattled to the touch. "There's nothing in the world so warm as newspapers, me boy," said Battersleigh. Upon the table, which was a box, there was displayed always an invariable arrangement. Above the whip were laid the gauntlets, crossed at sixty degrees.
He read again and again the letter Battersleigh had written him, which, in its somewhat formal diction and informal orthography, was as follows: "To Capt. Edw. Franklin, Bloomsbury, Ill. "MY DEAR NED: I have the honour to state to you that I am safely arrived and well-established at this place, Ellisville, and am fully disposed to remain.
An' if ye don't mind I'll just jine ye. It's lonesome I am meself the night." Battersleigh busied himself about his room, and soon appeared arrayed, as was Franklin himself, with a revolver at his belt. "Shure, Ned, me boy," he said, "an officer an' a gintleman should nivver appear abroad without his side arms. At laste, methinks, not on a night like this."
In the line of vision from the tent door there could be seen no token of a human neighbourhood, nor could there be heard any sound of human life. The canvas house stood alone and apart. Battersleigh gazed out of the door as he folded his letter. "It's grand, just grand," he said.
On top of whip and gloves rested the hat, indented never more nor less. Beyond these, the personal belongings of Battersleigh of the Rile Irish were at best few and humble. In the big city, busy with reviving commerce, there were few who cared how Battersleigh lived.
So I sinds over to me ould Aunt's country not, ye may suppose, over the signayture o' Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, but as Henry Battersleigh, agent o' the British American Colonization Society an' I says to the proper party there, says I, 'I've fifteen hundred acres o' the loveliest land that ivver lay out of dures, an' ye may have it for the trifle o' fifty dollars the acre.
"The best that could be, and the hardest to believe," said Battersleigh. "Where'd you get thim, and how?" "By diplomacy," said Franklin. "Morrison, one of the transit men of the engineers, was home in Missouri for a visit, and yesterday he came back and brought a sack of apples with him.
Franklin put out a wagon at this industry, hauling in the fuel and the merchandise of the raw plains. He bought the grim product of others who were ready to sell and go out the earlier again. He betimes had out more than one wagon of his own; and Battersleigh, cavalryman, became Batty, scouter for bones, while Franklin remained at the market.
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