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Updated: May 7, 2025
He was a bit pale, but he pulled himself together well before he reached them and dismounted with a good front of unconcern. Battersleigh grasped his hand in both his own and greeted him with a shower of welcomes and of compliments. Curly slapped him heartily upon the shoulders. "You're all right, pardner," said he.
Franklin chuckled at the reminiscent music as he stepped in and said good morning. "You seem in fine fettle this morning, friend," said he. "Very fine, for an old man." Battersleigh squared around and looked at him soberly. "Ned," said he, "ye're a dethractor of innycince. Batty ould! Listen to me, boy! It's fifty years younger I am to-day than when I saw ye last.
Ned, come with me." Grasping his companion by the arm, Battersleigh stepped outside the house, and strode off with long steps across the prairie. "Come," he said, as one who commanded alike secrecy and despatch. Humouring him, Franklin followed for a quarter of a mile.
Such had been Battersleigh's quarters in many climes, under different flags, sometimes perhaps more luxurious, but nevertheless punctiliously neat, even when Fortune had left him servantless, as had happened now. Colonel Battersleigh as he wrote now and then looked out of the open door. His vision reached out, not across a wilderness of dirty roads, nor along a line of similar tents.
He saw Curly's hands lying lightly upon the butts of his revolvers. He saw Battersleigh draw his revolver and push with the side of the barrel against the nearest men as though to thrust them back. He himself crowded to the fore, eager, expectant, prepared. One shot, and a score of lives were done, and dark indeed would be this night in Ellisville. Suddenly the climax came.
I presume that's all there is just to make money, and then more, if you can. Let it go that way. I'll not wear my heart on my sleeve not for any woman in the world." Franklin's jaws set in fashion still more stern than their usual cast, yet there had come, as Battersleigh did not fail to notice, an older droop to the corners of his mouth, and a loss of the old brilliance of the eye.
With equal joy he looked upon the face of Curly, frowning underneath the pushed-back hat, and upon that of Battersleigh, keen-looking, eager, as though about to witness some pleasurable, exciting thing. Yet he knew the men in front were as brave as they, and as desperately resolved. In a moment, he reflected, the firing would begin.
"Yes," said Franklin, "I'll give you a look, and one more guess." He held up a small bag before Battersleigh's face. "It's not potatoes, Ned?" said Battersleigh in an awed tone of voice. Franklin laughed. "No; better than that," he said. "Ned," said Battersleigh, "do ye mind if I have a bit smell of that bag?"
Colonel Battersleigh, Captain Franklin. I was so unlucky as to be of the Kentucky troops, sir, in the same unpleasantness. I want to introduce my wife, gentlemen, and my niece, Miss Beauchamp." Franklin really lost a part of what the speaker was saying.
This, as he drew near, he discovered to be a portion of an old flour sack, washed clean and left bleaching in the sun and wind until it had assumed a colour a shade more pure than its original dinginess. Battersleigh made dramatic approach. "There!" said he, pointing with triumphant dignity to the fluttering rag. "Yes, I see," said Franklin, "but what do you want of this piece of sack?"
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