“Yes. They know him at the hotel, though; and I reckon it will be all right. I’ll ride behind.”
No more was said, and soon the cart was on its way to the capital. Hardly a mile was covered when they came upon Jerry Nickerson, sitting on the wreck of the fancy cart, the picture of misery and despair. Broken bits of harness lay on the ground, and the ponies were nowhere in sight. Nickerson had had his left hand cut, and had the member bound up in his handkerchief.
“They tried to take a stone wall, hang ’em!” he explained to Gilbert. “The cart’s a wreck, and so’m I. Where’s Nuggy?”
“Safe,” answered the young lieutenant. “If you don’t want to stay here all night, you had better hop up behind.”
“But the busted cart—?”
“You had better attend to the cart and the ponies in the morning.”
Nickerson wished, in drunken style, to argue the matter; but the young lieutenant was in no humor to listen to such a beast, and ordered the Tagal to drive on. Seeing this, Nickerson scrambled up behind, threw himself beside Nuggy Polk, and was soon snoring lustily.
The Hotel for American Gentlemen was reached without further incident; and, having had the Tagal drive into the court-yard, Gilbert interviewed the clerk, and had the two sleeping ones transferred to the rooms they had previously occupied.
“Can you tell me who this Jerry Nickerson is?” asked the young lieutenant of the clerk at the desk.
“I cannot, excepting that he seems to be a close friend to Mr. Polk,” was the reply.