For life was all so fine and gay with Lieutenant Dolan in those days.
And he whistled and sang, and thought what he pleased, and said what
he pleased, and did what he pleased, and if the world didn't like it,
the world could picket its horses and get out of Jacob Dolan's livery
barn. For Mr. Dolan was thinking that from the livery-stable to the
office of sheriff is but a step in this land of the free and home of
the brave; so he carried his head back and his chest out and invited
insult in the fond hope of provoking assault. He was the flower of the
times,--effulgent, rather gaudy, and mostly red!




CHAPTER V


Good times came to Sycamore Ridge in the autumn. The dam across the
creek was furnishing power for a flour-mill and a furniture factory.
The endless worm of wagons that was wriggling through the town
carrying movers to the West, was sloughing many of its scales in
Sycamore Ridge. Martin Culpepper had been East with circulars
describing the town and adjacent country. He had brought back three
stage loads of settlers, and was selling lots in Culpepper's addition
faster than they could be surveyed. The Frye blacksmith shop had
become a wagon shop, and then a hardware store was added; the flag
fluttered from the high flagstaff over the Exchange National Bank
building, and all day long farmers were going from the mill to the
bank. General Philemon Ward gave up school-teaching and went back to
his law office; but he was apt to take sides with President Andrew
Johnson too vigorously for his own good, and clients often avoided his