"Late? No, Tom," said the colonel; "but the scoundrel has run to cover.
We are watchin' his hole."
"You sholy don't tell me he's got away, Colonel?" replied Major Yanccy.
"What could I do, Yancey? He hasn't had the decency to answer my letter."
Yancey, however, on hearing more fully the facts, clung to the hope that the Yankee would yet be smoked out.
"I of co'se am not familiar with the code as practiced Nawth—perhaps these delays are permis'ble; but in my county a challenge is a ball, and a man is killed or wounded ez soon ez the ink is dry on the papah. The time he has to live is only a mattah of muddy roads or convenience of seconds. Is there no way in which this can be fixed? I doan't like to return home without an effo't bein' made."
The colonel, anxious to place the exact situation before Major Yancey so that he might go back fully assured that everything that a Carter could do had been done, read the copy of the challenge, gave the details of Fitz's efforts to find Klutchem, the repeated visits to his office, and finally the call at his apartments.
The major listened attentively, consulted aside with the judge, and then in an authoritative tone, made the more impressive by the decided way with which he hitched up his trousers, said:—
"You have done all that a high-toned Southern gemman could do, Colonel.
Yo' honor, suh, is without a stain."
In which opinion he was sustained by Kerfoot, who proved to be a ponderous sort of old-fashioned county judge, and who accentuated his decision by bringing down his cane with a bang.
While all this was going on in the private office under cover of profound secrecy, another sort of consultation of a much more public character was being held in the office outside.