“That, Mr Kipp—I beg pardon—Colonel Kipp—is a private matter.”
“Private and particular, eh?”
“Very.”
“Oh, then, I guess, you’d better keep it to yourself.”
“That is precisely my intention,” I rejoined, turning on my heel, and stepping out of the verandah.
The young hunter was just buckling the girth of his saddle. As I approached him, I saw that he was smiling. He had overheard the concluding part of the conversation; and looked as if pleased at the way in which I had bantered the “colonel,” who, as I afterwards learnt from him, was the grand swaggerer of Swampville. A word was sufficient. He at once acceded to my request, frankly, if not in the most elegant phraseology, “I’ll be pleased to show ye the way to Holt’s Clarin’. My own road goes jest that way, till within a squ’ll’s jump o’t.”
“Thank you: I shall not keep you waiting.”
I re-entered the hotel to pay for my entertainment, and give orders for the saddling of my horse. It was evident that I had offended the landlord by my brusque behaviour. I ascertained this by the amount of my bill, as well as by the fact of being permitted to saddle for myself. Even the naked “nigger,” did not make his appearance at the stable. Not much cared I. I had drawn the girth too often, to be disconcerted by such petty annoyance; and, in five minutes after, I was in the saddle and ready for the road. Having joined my companion in the street, we rode off from the inhospitable caravanserai of the Jackson Hotel—leaving its warlike landlord to chew his tobacco, and such reflections as my remarks had given rise to.