"
"Powerful sorry to hear it," said Jasper. "Good feller--worst habit of
his was always tryin' to talk when he couldn't."
"Yep. But he ain't tryin' of it now."
"I am also sorry he's dead," said Foster. "We were going to take him
down to town with us."
"No use to take him now," Laz replied; and a silence fell, broken only
when they turned back into the highway, when the lout of a driver,
impressed in the neighborhood, remarked to Laz:
"I reckon you air as about as big a liar as they kin set up. Here comes
Mose Blake now."
"Hah!" exclaimed Foster. "A good backwoods trick. Round him up, boys."
The stutterer was dressed in his best, on his way to pay stammering
court to a girl. He strove to explain that he couldn't go with them, but
the officers laughed at his attempts to talk, compelled him to get in,
and drove on.
At night they camped near a spring, beneath a walnut tree, the officers
standing turn about while the prisoners slept; and early the next
morning they resumed their rumbling journey.
As they were now out of the neighborhood range of the two boys,
everything began to possess a keen interest for them, the houses, cattle
and even the dogs that ran along the yard fences to bark at the wagon.
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