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For when General Waller tested his new gun, though it did not burst, it did not come up to expectations, and its range was not as great as some of the weapons already in use. Then, too, Captain Badger acted as Tom's friend at court. He "pulled wires" to good advantage, and at last the government sent word that one of the ordnance officers would be present on a certain day to witness the tests.
My sister pulled out the filing papers, looking for the description the United States Land Office had given her: Section 18, Range 77W about thirty miles from Pierre, South Dakota. "Three miles from the buffalo waller," our driver said, mumbling to himself, ignoring the official location and looking back as though measuring the distance with his eye. "Yeah, right in here somewhere."
All of which would be an eminently proper proceeding in view of their extreme age and general infirmities, old gentlemen of three score years and over appearing more or less decrepit to athletes of twenty and five. Waller was the only man who really seemed to take either of them seriously.
"There are a lot of riders coming, Mr. Lauman," he announced quietly. "It sounds like a whole roundup. I thought you ought to know." The prisoners went white, and put down knife and fork. If they had never feared before, plainly they were afraid then. Lauman's face did not in the least change. "Put the hand-cuffs on, Waller," he said.
"I don't think that either of the maids is likely to come up," said Waller, at parting; "but if they should try the door, all you have got to do is to keep quite still. Of course, you will lock yourself in as soon as I am gone. Shall I bring you anything else to eat before I go?" "No," said the lad, with a weary look of disgust. "You bring me too much as it is; more than I care to have.
Blood-money?" "Yes; the reward for taking me." "Reward! For taking you?" "Yes, where are your bloodhounds?" "Well, you are a rum chap," said Waller, laughing. "You talk like a fellow in a romance. We have no bloodhounds. We have a pointer, a water-spaniel, and a retriever. Why, what sort of an idea have you got in your head about bloodhounds hunting you?"
There was no particular reason why Mr Waller should have introduced the subject of temperance, except that he happened to be an enthusiast.
I now, for the first time, perceived that Waller was arrayed in a very decorous suit of dark grey, with cord shorts and boots, and looked a very knowing style of servant for the side of a tilbury. "You like it, don't you?
But these men had neither time nor inclination to hang down their heads and sigh. Big Waller, being a careless individual by nature, was the first to regain somewhat of his wonted tone and manner. Sitting on a grassy knoll, on which all the party had been resting for some time after their fruitless exertions, in moody silence, Waller looked up suddenly and said, "Who's afraid?"
But there was no frost in the air on that evening when, after an early, wholesome tea the Waller children had sought the sweet seclusion of the box bushes there to talk on the old days. "I wonder where ol' Cousin Dink is anyhow," ventured Polly. "I ain't knowin' or carin'. She's a mean ol' bulwhinger wherever she is." Peter had a funny way of making up names to suit occasions.
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