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I almost leaped from the ground in consternation. My whole frame throbbed, my mouth fell open, my tongue was tied. The man who had got me into this thing this barrel lifted the tent-flap. "Mr. Gholson," said the General, "write an order assigning Smith to Ferry's scouts."
The children crowded to the windows, but Maude did not appear.... I found myself walking with Tom and Susan past hurrying travellers and porters to the Decatur Street entrance, where my automobile stood waiting. "I'll take you home, Susan," I said. "We're ever so much obliged, Hugh," she answered, "but the street-cars go almost to ferry's door. We're dining there."
His head seemed not "laid wide open," but to have only a streak of the skull bared by Ferry's glancing left-cut and a strip of the scalp turned inside out. Cecile drew his head down and showed it to me, in a transport of reproaches, as though my false report had wronged no one else so ruinously as her. I awoke aghast.
In Paris I am at home, everything interests me; instead of being lazy, I am in too great a hurry. I should like not only to walk, but to fly. I wanted to make myself believe that there was society in Vienna, but that is impossible. The hotel is full of a very good sort of English people. We are going to Ferry's. I took the address in Vienna.
A beam of light touching Ferry's face made his smile haggard. I asked if this Jewett was another leader of scouts. "No, he is a high-rank surgeon. Yet I think he must have heard all about her; he wouldn't send that letter, that way, just for gratitude." "Yes," I responded, pondering, "he may easily have learned about her," and I called to mind that chief-of-staff of whom Charlotte had told us.
In the early sunlight and in the pink dust of their own feet, down the red clay road at an easy trot in column by fours, the blue-gray of their dress flashing with the glint of the carbines at their backs, came Ferry's scouts with Ned Ferry at their head. There was his beautiful brown horse under him, too.
He's been here three times now, six days and a week and a part of a week, and I pray to God night and day he may never come again. Praying! Back he's come sure as fate. He takes my money and he takes my things. He won't let no man stay here to protect me or do the boats or work the ferry. The ferry's getting a scandal.
"No Indian pay," said the old chief. "He go the bridge and the road no pay." "Well, the Chinamen paid." "But the Indians, no! No pay. Me go Whiskey Bar big pow-wow. Plenty ox, plenty bear meat, plenty firewater " "You go back!" roared the tollkeeper, swearing, "and go ford the river. That's good enough for a Digger! The ferry's been taken off, but the water is not so high."
Was that no part of Ned Ferry's plan if the plan was his? Were those villains waiting yet, up at the ford? I could hear nothing at my back but the singing of innumerable birds. "Halt!" the drunkard growled again, and again I halted, wearing a look of timid awe, but as full of guile as a weasel.
In his right hand, shoulder high, he held not his sword, but Charlotte's fingers lightly poised for the turn in the arrested dance. "Stand, gentlemen, every man is covered by two; look at the doors; look at the windows." The staff captain daringly sprang for the front door, but Ferry's quick boot caught his instep and he struck the floor full length.
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