at happened last night, and all
about Harman's sudden going away. Well, sir--ma'am, I mean--it
struck me of a heap. I never was worse doubled up by news in my life.
I'm not a praying man, as a rule--I only remember praying out loud
once--that was when brother Euc was near 'bout dead with cholera
morbus--I began to pray, and he says, 'Don't be fooling with the Lord
now, but give me some more camphire.' That speech of Euc's sort of
cured me of praying out loud, though I'm orthodox. Let's see; where
was I? Oh, yes, I felt so dangnation sorry for the family, that I
says, in my mind, or I reckon it was in my soul, I says to God, 'Don't
forget to keep your all-seeing eye on Margaret.' Well, Colonel Phelps;
I leave you in charge of the widow and the fatherless. If you have any
trouble with the militia, just send for Plutarch Byle. Good-bye, Mrs.
B. I never seen you lookin' handsomer since the day I first met you
and Evaleen, last May a year ago, when I was up here investigating
that hunk of raw beef in the puddle."

Notwithstanding his precipitate farewell, Plutarch lingered at the
door, and kept nervously wiping the blood off his thumb upon the
fringe of his doublet. Mrs. Blennerhassett, with gracious solicitude,
insisted upon wrapping a small linen handkerchief about the wounded
member. The gawky hero looked very sheepish while she tied the soft
bandage fast.

"Is this yourn?" he asked.

"It was mine," she answered, smiling amusedly, "but it now belongs to
the knight who came to fight my battle when I was in great distress."

"By gum, I'm obliged to you."

Uttering these elegant parting words, Byle bolted out of the room to
the long porch. He stood a moment, then turned his face toward the
door, where stood the lady, smiling her embarrassed thanks and adieux.
Big tears were trickling down Plutarch's cheeks. The awkward giant
gulped, wheeled round, and with long strides made a bee-line for his
boat, followed as he left the yard by cheers from the Wood County
militia.

* * * * *

Fortunately, a party of youths, including Morgan Neville, William
Robinson, young Brackenridge, and a dozen others, who had attached
themselves to Burr and Arlington in Pittsburg, came down the Ohio, in
a flatboat belonging to one of their associates, Thomas Butler. These
adventurous voyagers, suspected of complicity with Burr, were
arraigned before three justices of the peace, of the Dogberry caliber,
and afte