“Two o'clock—if they drove over.”
“I'll be around here by that time. You, Abrams, can look out for the road and see who comes into town.”
“All right, sir,” said Abrams. “There won't anybody get in here without I catch sight of him.”
Lockhart nodded his assent to the boast, and after cautioning the men who were left behind we sallied forth.
The town was a straggling, not unpleasing country place. The business street was depressing with its stores closed and its saloons open. A few loafers hung about the doors of the dram-shops, but the moist breath of the south wind eddying about with its burden of dust and dead leaves made indoors a more comfortable location, and through the blue haze of tobacco smoke we could see men gathered inside. Compared with the dens I had found about my lodgings in the city, the saloons were orderly; but nevertheless they offended my New England sense of the fitness of things. In the city I had scarcely known that there was a Sunday. But here I was reminded, and felt that something was amiss.
In the residence streets I was better pleased. Man had done little, but nature was prodigal to make up for his omissions. The buildings were poor and flimsy, but in the middle of December the flowers bloomed, vines were green, bushes sent forth their leaves, and the beauty of the scene even under the leaden skies and rising gale made it a delight to the eye.
“Not much of a place,” said Fitzhugh, looking disdainfully at the buildings. “Hello! Here's Dick Thatcher. How are you, Dick? It's a year of Sundays that I haven't seen you. This is—er—a friend of mine, Thatcher,—you needn't mention that you've seen us.” And Fitzhugh stumbled painfully over the recollection that we were incognito, and became silent in confusion.
“We needn't be strangers to Mr. Thatcher,” I laughed. “My name is Wilton. Of course you won't mention our business.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Wilton,” said Thatcher, impressed, and shifting the quid of tobacco in his lantern jaws. “Of course not.”
“And you needn't say anything of our being here at all,” I continued. “It might spoil the trade.”