I, too, was away all winter, but I got
back a month before the Blight, to learn
much of interest that had come about.
The Hon. Samuel Budd had ear-wagged
himself into the legislature, had moved
that Court-House, and was going to be
State Senator. The Wild Dog had confined
his reckless career to his own hills
through the winter, but when spring came,
migratory-like, he began to take frequent
wing to the Gap. So far, he and Marston
had never come into personal conflict,
though Marston kept ever ready for him,
and several times they had met in the road,
eyed each other in passing and made no
hipward gesture at all. But then Marston
had never met him when the Wild Dog was
drunk--and when sober, I took it that the
one act of kindness from the engineer
always stayed his hand. But the Police
Guard at the Gap saw him quite often--
and to it he was a fearful and elusive
nuisance. He seemed to be staying
somewhere within a radius of ten miles, for
every night or two he would circle about
the town, yelling and firing his pistol, and
when we chased him, escaping through the
Gap or up the valley or down in Lee.
Many plans were laid to catch him, but all