"Well, there wasn't any small-pox or measles at my house when I left day before yesterday. Suppose we go there, and see if there's anything the matter. If the stable hasn't blown away or burned down, maybe you'll find a place for your horse, and then we can scuffle around maybe, and find something to eat. That's a fine animal you're on. He's the one, I reckon, that walked the stringer, after the bridge had been washed away. I never could swallow that tale, Mr. Sanders."
"Nor me nuther," replied Mr. Sanders. "All I know is that he took me across the river one dark night after a fresh, an' some folks on t'other side wouldn't believe I had come across. They got to the place whar the bridge ought to 'a' been long before dark, and they found it all gone except one stringer. I seed the stringer arterwards, but I never could make up my mind that my hoss walked it wi' me a-straddle of his back."
"Still, if he was my horse," Colonel Blasengame remarked, "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for him, and I reckon you've heard it rumoured around that I haven't got any more money than two good steers could pull."
Mr. Sanders turned his horse's head in the direction that Colonel Blasengame was going, and when they arrived at his home, he stopped at the gate. "Mr. Sanders," he said, taking out his watch, "I'll bet you two dollars and a half to a horn button that breakfast will be ready in ten minutes, and that everything will be fixed as if company was expected."
And it was true. By the time the horse had been put in the stable and fed, breakfast was ready, and when Mr. Sanders was ushered into the room, Mrs. Blasengame was sitting in her place at the table pouring out coffee. She was a frail little woman, but her eyes were bright with energy, and she greeted the unexpected guest as cordially as if he had come on her express invitation. She had little to say at any time, but when she spoke her words were always to the purpose.
"What did you accomplish?" she asked her husband, after Mr. Sanders, as in duty bound, had praised the coffee and the biscuit, and the meal was well under way.
"Nothing, honey; not a thing in the world. I thought the boys had been carried to Atlanta, but they are at Fort Pulaski."
Mrs. Blasengame said nothing more, and the Colonel was for talking about something else, but the curiosity of Mr. Sanders was aroused.
"What boys was you referrin' to, Colonel?" he asked.
"I don't like to tell you, Mr. Sanders," replied Colonel Blasengame, "but if you'll take no offence, I'll say that the boys are from a little one-horse country settlement called Shady Dale, a place where the people are asleep day and night. A parcel of Yankees went over there the other night, snatched four boys out of their beds, and walked off with them."