from home."

"Hain't once before, since I went to fight the Yanks," grinned Slogan.
"Seems to me I've rid four hundred an' forty-two miles on that
churndasher thar. My legs is one solid sore streak from my heels up,
an' now it's beginnin' to attact my spine-bone. I'm too ol' an' stiff
to bear down right in the stirrups, I reckon."

"What has brought you over here?" asked Westerfelt, with a smile.

Slogan took out his clay pipe with its cane stem and knocked it on the
heel of his boot, then he put it into his mouth and blew through it
till the liquid nicotine cracked audibly. "I've been huntin'," he
said, dryly. "In my day an' time I've been on all sorts o' hunts, from
bear an' deer down to yaller-hammers, but I waited till I wus in my
sixty-fifth year--goin' on sixty-six--'fore I started out huntin' fer a
dad-blasted woman."

"A woman!" exclaimed the listener.

"You could guess who it wus ef you'd make a stab ur two at it," Slogan
made answer, as he scratched a match and began to smoke. "Day before
yesterday Clariss' went out in the yard to rake up a apron o' chips,
an' happened to take notice that thar wusn't a sign o' smoke comin' out
o' the old woman's chimney. It was cold enough to freeze hard boiled
eggs, an' she 'lowed some'n had gone wrong down at the cabin, so she
run in whar I wus, skeerd into kinniptions. 'Mr. Slogan,' sez she, 'I
believe sister's friz in 'er bed, ur dropped off sudden, fer as shore
as yore a-smokin' in that cheer, thar ain't a speck o' fire in 'er
chimney.' Well, I wus in my stockin' feet, like I ginerally am when I