It was interesting, but I did not stay in contemplation of the spectacle; I out and bolted. I crossed the track and ran straight for the end fence. This latter barrier looked somewhat high; I made no essay to climb, but, picking a broadest board, launched myself against it, shoulder on. The board fell and I was through the gap and in an open field.
But why waste time with that hustling hue and cry? It was futile for all its indignant energy; I promise you, I made good my distance. Young, strung like a harp, with a third of a mile start and able to speed like a deer, I ran the hunt out of sight in the first ten minutes. It was all earnestness, that flight of mine. I fled through three villages and a puny little river that fell across my path. I welcomed the river, for I knew it would cool the quest.
Of a verity! I got my money, and my stone throwing was not to be in vain. True, the driver and the owner of Rupert both protested, but the track statutes were inexorable. The judges could take no cognizance of that cannonading from the buttonwood and gave the race—three straight heats—to Creole Belle. Surething Pete won his thousands; and as for me, my friend and I encountered according to our tryst and he brought me my money safe. Within fifteen hours from that time when I dealt disaster to Rupert from the sheltering buttonwood, clothed and in respectable tears, I was kneeling by my mother’s side and taking what sorrowful joy I might for having arrived while she was yet equal to the bestowal of her blessing.
It was to be our last evening about the great stone fireplace; the last of our stories would be told. The roads were now broken, and though a now-and-then upset was more than likely to enliven one’s goings about, sleighs and sleds as schemes of conveyance were pronounced to be among things possible. As we drew our chairs about the blaze, the jangle of an occasional leash of bells showed how some brave spirit was even then abroad.
Under these inspiring conditions, the Sour Gentleman and the Red Nosed Gentleman declared their purpose of on the morrow pressing for the railway station eighteen miles away. To this end they had already chartered a sleigh, and the word was out that it be at the Inn door by ten of the morning clock.
For myself, nothing was driving me of business or concern, and I was in no haste to leave; and the Old Cattleman and his ward, Sioux Sam, were also of a mind to abide where they were for a farther day or two at least. But the going of the Sour Gentleman and the Red Nosed Gentleman would destroy our circle, wherefore we were driven to regard this as “our last evening,” and to crown it honorably the Jolly Doctor brewed a giant bowl of what he described as punch. The others, both by voice and the loyalty wherewith they applied themselves to its disappearance, avowed its excellencies, and on that point Sioux Sam and I were content to receive their words.
The Red Nosed Gentleman—who had put aside his burgundy in compliment to the Jolly Doctor and his punch, and seemed sensibly exhilarated by this change of beverage—was the first to give the company a story. It was of his younger, green-cloth days, and the title by which he distinguished it was “When I Ran the Shotgun.”