"I'll do the best I can, Mr. Westerfelt, you kin be shore of that."
Chapter XXIV
After breakfast, at Bradley's, Westerfelt went into his room and hastily packed his valise and told Alf to take it to the stable and put it into the hack going that morning to the station. Mrs. Bradley came to him in the entry.
"John Westerfelt, what's got into you?" she asked, looking at him with concern. "Shorely you are not goin' off."
"To Atlanta for a few days on business, that's all," he said; "I'll write back from there."
She looked at him curiously, as if not quite satisfied with his explanation. "Well, hurry back," she said. "Me 'n' Luke'll miss you mightily."
"Tell Luke good-bye for me," he called back from the gate, and she nodded to him from the hall, but he could not hear what she said. As he approached the stable, he saw the hack waiting for him at the door. Budd Ridly sat on the driver's seat.
"Time we wus off," he remarked to Westerfelt. "It takes peert drivin' to catch the two-forty, south-bound."