Lamar, who by this time began to see a little into the affair, asked, "But, Damon, how did all this happen? you seem to have been discomfited."
"Now I'll be smashed if you ain't off the trail, stranger, for you see I've only showed you half yet."
Upon which he drew from his other pocket a pair of spectacles, bent, bloody, and broken,—then a wig,—and, lastly, the remains of a little black rattan with a gold head and chain broken into inches. He displayed these on the bed as he had done the others; only drawing his handkerchief as a line between them. Upon this he fell, rather than sat, back into a chair just behind him, and burst out into a loud, long, and hearty laugh, seemingly excited afresh at the sight of his spoils.
"Well, now," said he, "I wish I may be horn swoggled, if ever I thought to live to see the day when I should 'sculp' a Christian man; but there it is, you see; I left his head as clean as a peeled onion."
"But how? and when? and who was your antagonist in this frolic?"
"Frolic!" exclaimed Damon; "well, now, it's what I would call a regular row; I never saw a prettier knock down and drag out in all the days of my life, even in old Kentuck."
"But do tell me," said Lamar, "was anybody seriously hurt?"
"There was several chaps in the circus last night with their heels uppermost, besides them suple chaps on the horses; I can tell you that."
"Oh! you were in the circus, were you?"
"Yes; and there was a rip-roaring sight of slight o'hand and tumblin work there, besides their ground and lofty tumblin they had in the handbills."