“Here!”

“Whar you gwine?”

“Home!”

“Well, that ain’t the way.”

“Why, we came this way.”

“No, I reckon not.”

“I’m sure we didn’t come that way.”

“Whar, in the devil’s name, is the branch?” petulantly inquired Sam. “If I could only see the branch, I could soon find the way.”

“It must be down this way,” I replied.

“Somehow or other I’m tetotiatiously deluded, to-night,” remarked Sam, as he came tearing through the briers with his stirrup-irons dangling about him, his gun in one hand and frying-pan in the other. “If I hadn’t a been completely dumfoozled, I’d never a killed Blaze like I did.”