“Fer’s I’m concerned,” said old Absalom Gammt, “I’m through if ye fellers air.”
“Suits me,” rejoined Bullock.
And so closed the meeting at the Forks of the Kentucky.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CROSSROADS
IF EVER was happy wayfarer, that was David Joslin, as now he held his course back to the little Ohio village which had been his home these past two years. He walked eagerly, hurrying as does a man who realizes that there is much to be done with little time for the doing.
He had no staff nor scrip, nor needed any in the course of his journey out from the Cumberlands to the edge of the great plateau. Here he found the railway leading to the north, and followed its line as any common tramp, for the good reason that he had not money for railway fare. Certain gentry of the road he met, but they neither accepted him as one of the guild, nor hindered him in his going, for they could not classify this man who walked slightly stooped, with pale face, but with long and steady stride, a man whose clothing betokened no luxury, but who still had something about him which did not grade him as one of the hopeless drifters of the world.