vengeance upon his luckless head, but for the prompt interference of
Culpepper. Thwarted in this, she threw herself upon the ground, and then
into unpicturesque hysterics. There was a fine moral lesson, not only in
this grotesque performance of a sex which cannot afford to be grotesque,
but in the ludicrous concern with which it inspired the two men.
Culpepper, to whom woman was more or less angelic, was pained and
sympathetic; the Colonel, to whom she was more or less improper, was
exceedingly terrified and embarrassed. Howbeit the storm was soon over,
and after Mistress Dolores had returned a little dagger to its sheath
(her garter), she quietly took herself out of Madrono Hollow, and
happily out of these pages forever. The two men, left to themselves,
conversed in low tones. Dawn stole upon them before they separated:
the Colonel quite sobered and in full possession of his usual jaunty
self-assertion; Culpepper with a baleful glow in his hollow cheek, and
in his dark eyes a rising fire.


The next morning the general ear of Madrono Hollow was filled with
rumors of the Colonel's mishap. It was asserted that he had been invited
to withdraw his female companion from the floor of the Assembly Ball
at the Independence Hotel, and that, failing to do this, both were
expelled. It is to be regretted that in 1854 public opinion was divided
in regard to the propriety of this step, and that there was some
discussion as to the comparative virtue of the ladies who were not
expelled; but it was generally conceded that the real casus belli was
political. "Is this a dashed Puritan meeting?" had asked the
Colonel, savagely. "It's no Pike County shindig," had responded the
floor-manager, cheerfully. "You're a Yank!" had screamed the Colonel,
profanely qualifying the noun. "Get! you border ruffian," was the reply.
Such at least was the substance of the reports. As, at that sincere