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seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got further and further

away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at all; by the time we had

left a mile of woods behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet,

and we paddled over to the tow-head and hid in the cotton-woods and was

safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald head

and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy

blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot tops,

and home-knit galluses -- no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue

jeans coat with slick brass buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had

big fat ratty-looking carpet-bags. ssssssssss

The other fellow was about thirty and dressed about as ornery. After break-

fast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these

chaps didn't know one another. ssssssssss

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth -- and it does

take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it -- but I staid about one night

longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across

you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged

me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself and

would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarn -- what's yourn?"

"Well, I'd ben a-runnin' a little temperance revival thar, 'bout a week, and

was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was makin' it mighty warm

for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as much as five or six dollars a night -- ten

cents a head, children and niggers free -- and business a growin' all the time;

when somehow or another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way

of puttin' in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted me out

this morn in', and told me the people was getherin' on the quiet, with their dogs

and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's

start, and then run me down, if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and

feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast -- I warn't

hungry." ssssssssss

ssssssssss

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