"Are those pants up there?" asked Cooke, pointing, "or is it a hole in the sky?"
"This," said Collins, picking up a garment from the bush over which it had spread itself, "has every appearance of being his little nightie. How indelicate!"
"No," said Ardmore, taking it from him, "it's a kimona of the most expensive silk, which the colonel undoubtedly wears when they get him up at midnight to hear the reports of his scouts."
They went down the road, stumbling now and then over a bit of debris from the vanished wagon.
"It's like walking on carpet," observed Cooke, picking up a feathered chapeau. "I didn't know there were so many clothes in all the world."
They abandoned the idea of farther pursuit on reaching a trunk standing on end, from which a uniform dress-coat drooped sadly.
"This is not our trouble; it's his trouble. I guess he's struck a smoother road down there. We'd better go back," said Cooke.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first dress in glad rags," piped Collins.
They sat down and laughed until the negro approached warily with the horses.