w here as yet myself,
but am fully disposed, as they say in the strange language here, to
drive my Stake. I want you, my dear boy, also to drive Yours beside
me, and to that Effect I beg to extend you whatever Aid may lie in my
Power.

"Hoping that you may receive this communication duly, and make reply to
Same, and hoping above all things that I may soon meet again my
Companion of the 47th., I beg to subscribe myself, my dear boy, ever
your Obdt. & Affect. Friend,

"BATTERSLEIGH.

"P.S.--Pray Herild your advent by a letter & bring about 4 lbs. or 5
lbs. of your Favourite Tea, as I am Short of Same."

The letter ended with Battersleigh's best flourish. Franklin turned it
over again and again in his hand and read it more than once as he
pondered upon its message. "Dear old fellow," he said; "he's a good
deal of a Don Quixote, but he never forgets a friend. Buffalo and
Indians, railroads and hotels--it must at least be a land of contrasts!"

CHAPTER VI

EDWARD FRANKLIN, LAWYER

Edward Franklin had taken up his law studies in the office of Judge
Bradley, the leading lawyer of the little village of Bloomsbury, where
Franklin was born, and where he had spent most of his life previous to
the time of his enlistment in the army. Judge Bradley was successful,
as such matters go in such communities, and it was his open boast that
he owed his success to himself and no one else. He had no faith in
such mythical factors as circumstances in the battle of life. This is
the common doctrine of all men who have arrived, and Judge Bradley had
long since arrived, in so far as the possibilities of his surroundings
would admit. His was the largest law library in the town. He had the
most imposing offices--a suite of three rooms, with eke a shiny
base-burner in the reception room. His was one of the three silk hats
in the town.

Thirty-five years earlier, a raw youth from old Vermont, Hollis N.
Bradley had walked into the embryonic settlement of Bloomsbury with a
single law book under his arm, and naught but down upon his chin. He
pleaded his first cause before a judge who rode circuit over a
territory now divided into three Congressional districts. He won his
first case, for his antagonist was even more ignorant than he. As
civilization advanced, he defended fewer men for stealing hogs, and
more for murder and adultery. His practice grew with the growth of the
population of the country about him. He was elec