checked vest and says: 'I take that unkindly, madam--calling me
overdressed. I selected this suiting with great care. It ain't nice to
call me overdressed. I feel it deeply.'

"But they was off again before one thing could lead to another, taking
bottles of hard liquor they had uncorked. 'The open road! The open
road!' they yelled as they went.

"Well, that's about all. Some of the wives begun to straggle off home,
mostly in tears, and some hung round till later. I was one of these, not
wishing to miss anything of an absorbing character. Edgar Tomlinson went
early, too. Edgar writes 'The Lounger in the Lobby' column for the
_Recorder_, and he'd come out to report the entertainment; but at one
o'clock he said it was a case for the sporting editor and he'd try to
get him out before the kill.

"At different times one or two of the hunters would straggle back for
more drink. They said the quarry was making a long detour round their
left flank, trying his darndest to get to the railroad, but they had
hopes. And they scattered out. Ever and anon you would hear the long
howl of some lone drunkard that had got lost from the pack.

"About sunup they all found themselves at the railroad track about a
mile beyond the clubhouse, just at the head of Stender's grade. There
they was voting to picket the track for a mile each way when along come
the four-thirty-two way freight. It had slowed up some making the grade,
and while they watched it what should dart out from a bunch of scrub oak
but the active figure of Wilfred Lennox. He made one of them iron
ladders all right and was on top of a car when the train come by, but
none of 'em dast jump it because it had picked up speed again.

"They said Wilfred stood up and shook both fists at 'em and called 'em
every name he could lay his tongue to--using language so coarse you'd
never think it could have come from a poet's lips. They could see his
handsome face working violently long after they couldn't hear him. Just
my luck! I'm always missing something.

"So they come grouching back to the clubhouse and I took 'em home to
breakfast. When we got down to the table old Judge Ballard says: 'What
might have been an evening of rare enjoyment was converted into a
detestable failure by that cur. I saw from the very beginning that he
was determined to spoil our fun.'

"'The joke is sure on us,' says Ben Sutton, 'but I bear him no grudge.
In fact, I did him an injustice I knew he wasn't a p