“Howdy, Bill,” he said with no handshake or other form of a comrade’s greeting.
“Howdy, Jim,” returned my Gouverneur Faulkner in a manner of the same indifference but with also an expression in his face of delight at the sight of his blood brother, that Mr. Jim Todd.
“That thar boy a shet-mouth?”
“He’s Bob, and as hard as a nut,” was the introduction I had from my Gouverneur Faulkner.
“Then come on,” with which command that wild man led us around the tall cliff of gray rock, over which climbed a sweet vine of rosy blossoming, which I now know to call a laurel, and we arrived in front of a small and low hut that was built against the rocks. A clear, small stream made a very noisy way past the door of the hut, but save for its clamor all was silent.
“Where are the boys?” asked my Gouverneur Faulkner.
“Hid in the bushes. I’ve got the man tied back in the still room. I ’low he ain’t no revenue but they ’low different. Come back and see if you kin make out his gibberish.”
“Come on, Robert,” said my Gouverneur Faulkner to me as he followed the wild Jim into the hut and back into a room that was as a cave cut into the rock. And I, Robert Carruthers, followed him—to my death.
Seated upon a rude bench in that cave room, bound with a rope of great size, disheveled and soiled, but with all of the nobility of his great estate in his grave face, was my adored friend, Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles! As we entered he rose beside the bench and in that rising displayed a chain by which one of his feet was made fast to the rock of the wall.
“Good morning, sir,” said my Gouverneur Faulkner, as if greeting a gentleman upon the street of that city of Hayesville.