an
out-of-the-way place, and left there. It was loaded mainly with things
taken from the houses, and was evidently the private collection of
some freebooting subordinate, who did not intend that the Southern
Confederacy should be enriched by the property. Hence, probably, the
hesitation about taking it along with the main train. It was handed
over to Kent as the representative of the United States, who was alone
authorized to take charge of it. Assisted by Abe he started to make an
inventory of the contents. A portly jug of apple jack was kept at hand,
that there might not be any suffering from undue thirst during the
course of the operation, which, as Kent providently remarked, was liable
to make a man as dry as an Arizona plain.

The danger of such aridity seemed to grow more imminent continually,
judged by the frequency of their application to the jug. It soon became
more urgent than the completion of the inventory. Frequent visits of
loyal Kentuckians with other jugs and bottles, to drink to the renewed
supremacy of the Banner of Beauty and Glory, did not diminish Kent's
and Abe's apprehensions of ultimate thirst. Their clay seemed like some
other kinds, which have their absorptive powers strengthened by the more
they take up. They belonged to a not-unusual class of men whom it
takes about as long to get thoroughly drunk as it does to heat up
an iron-furnace, but the condition that they achieve then makes the
intoxication of other and ordinary men seem a very mild and tame
exhilaration.

By noon the next day this process was nearing its completion. A
messenger galloped into town with the information that the Union forces
were coming, and would arrive in the course of an hour or two.

"Shash so?" said Kent, straightening himself up with a crushing dignity
that always formed a sure gauge of the extent to which inebriation had
progressed. "Shash so? Troops 'she United States 'bout to enter
shis lovely metropolis wish all pomp and shircumshtance 'reassherted
'thority. 'Shtonishin' event; wonderful 'casion. Never happened 'fore;
probably never'll happen again. Ought to be 'propriately celebrated,
Abe!"

That gentleman made a strong effort to control joints which seemed
unmanageable, and succeeded in assuming a tolerable erectness, while he
blinked at his companion with stolid gravity.

"Abe, shis ish great 'casion. Greatest in she annalsh of she country.
We're only represhentatives Government in she town. Burden w