“We are,” said both of us, in concert. “Then, in the language of D. Webster, follow me, strike down yon guard, gain the highway, an' start for a new destination. Boys, we will walk home; let us shake from our feet the dust of Diddlebury.”
“We have got to walk,” said Henry. “We lost every dollar we had on the race.”
“We are all of equal rank,” said Smead, with a smile. “I will share with you my distinction. There is enough of it for all of us. Evenly divided, it should satisfy the ambition of every damn fool in Vermont. Now let us proceed to the higher walks of life, the first of which shall be the walk to Griggsby.”
The sun was low when, beyond the last house in the village of Diddlebury, we came out on the turnpike with our faces set in the direction of Griggsby, nine miles away—and destinations far better and more remote.
Henry and I were weary, but the talk of Smead helped us along.
By and by he said: “Boys, as workers of iniquity we are failures; let us admit it. For the weak the competition is too severe. The ill-trained, half-hearted, third-rate, incompetent criminal is no good. He is respected neither by God, man, nor the devil. Let's be respectable. If we must have something for nothing, let's go to cuttin' throats, or boldly an' openly an' without shame go into the railroad business. Then we might have our mansions, our horses, an' our hounds. Whether we died in bed or on the gallows, we should be honored in song an' story, like Captain Kidd.”
He gaily sang a verse of the ballad, very familiar in the days of which I am telling:
“Jim Fisk was a man, wore his heart on his sleeve,
No matter what people might say,
And he did all his deeds—both the good and the