at a wayside
house. Blant went to bed, handcuffed, between the sheriff and deputy,
each of whom retired with a loaded revolver in his hand. In the morning
the prisoner was gone, the blanket that had covered the three swung from
the window, and the two revolvers were found on the ground beneath,
placed neatly side by side.

"Thaint no men or no prison nowhere Blant couldn't git away from if he
was a mind to," said Nucky; "he wouldn't fool around and see his friends
et up like Odysseus."

The character of Odysseus also brought out some family history from
Geordie and Absalom. It appears that their grandfather, Old George
Yonts, was a man noted in several ways, as a hard-shell preacher, as a
wonderful nag-trader, and, like Odysseus, as a man of craft and guile
in wars. Warring factions would come to him for advice; and his
stratagems, when carried out, were brilliantly successful. The boys,
with much pride, told some awful instances. They also said that all of
his thirteen sons were "mean men," their own father having met death at
too early an age to become as distinguished as the other twelve. As I
listened, I marvelled, not that the "born trader's" morality is a little
oblique, but that he has any at all.

_Wednesday._

To-day I saw Philip hold out a handful of chestnuts to Taulbee, his
bosom friend, with the words, "Don't take more'n five,--you're owing me
now. You haint gone treat for allus!" Perfect candor is evidently the
sure, if rocky, foundation of their relationship.

_Saturday Night._

More family history as we were roasting sweet-potatoes in the hot ashes
under our fire to-night. Iry said he could recollect roasting them while
the men made his maw's coffin. "I never knowed no better," he said; "I
weren't but three, and thought she was laying there asleep. I wondered
what them men was a-hammering at outside. When I seed 'em take her off
in it, I knowed."

"She were the best step-maw ever I had," remarked Joab, feelingly.

"How many have you had?" I inquired.

"Oh, paw he's had about five women," he mused. "My maw first, and then
Iry's, and there's three sence. Serildy Byng, his next-to-last, was a
middling civil woman; but she never stayed long. This last one is just
fifteen, and haint got no manners. I have to fight her most every day,
she picks on me'n Iry so. Paw he has a sorry time learning her to
behave."

"I have heared something about your paw being right smart of a mean
man,"