Anyhow,
it's none of MY affair to bring the subject up to 'em. It looks to
me like one of them things George has been gassing about--one of them
things that has settled itself, and it ain't fur me to meddle and
unsettle it.

It set me to thinking about Martha, too. Not that I hadn't thought of
her lots of times. I had often thought I would write her. But I kept
putting it off, and purty soon I kind of forgot Martha. I had seen a lot
of different girls of all kinds since I had seen Martha. Yet, whenever
I happened to think of Martha, I had always liked her best. Only moving
around the country so much makes it kind of hard to keep thinking steady
of the same girl. Besides, I had lost that there half of a ring, too.

But knowing what I did now about Miss Hampton being Miss Buckner--or
Mrs. Armstrong--and related to these Davises made me want to get away
from there. Fur that secret made me feel kind of sneaking, like I wasn't
being frank and open with them. Yet if I had of told 'em I would of felt
sneakinger yet fur giving Miss Hampton away. I never got into a mix up
that-a-way betwixt my conscience and my duty but what it made me feel
awful uncomfortable. So I guessed I would light out from there. They
wasn't never no kinder, better people than them Davises, either. They
was so pleased with my bringing Bud home the night he was shot they
would of jest natcherally give me half their farm if I had of ast them
fur it. They wanted me to stay there--they didn't say fur how long, and
I guess they didn't give a dern. But I was in a sweat to ketch up with
Doctor Kirby agin.

CHAPTER XV

I made purty good time, and in a couple of days I was in Atlanta. I
knowed the doctor must of gone back into some branch of the medicine
game--the bottles told me that. I knowed it must be something that he
needed some special kind of bottles fur, too, or he wouldn't of had them
shipped all that distance, but would of bought them nearer. I seen I was
a dern fool fur rushing off and not inquiring what kind of bottles, so I
could trace what he was into easier.

It's hard work looking fur a man in a good-sized town. I hung around
hotel lobbies and places till I was tired of it, thinking he might
come in. And I looked through all the office buildings and read all the
advertisements in the papers. Then the second day I was there the state
fair started up and I went out to it.

I run acrost a couple I knowed out there the first thing--i