Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/347

Rh as if to leap up, and I shoved him back by the shoulder. 'Keep quiet,' I said, 'you fool, you. You can't jump off here.' And by that time Morgan had remembered me.

"He took off the ring and held it out to me. I said: 'We're quits'—and took it. 'But the next time you come around here interfering with this railroad,' I said, 'I 'll not let you off so easily, do you understand?'—and I left him.

"I looked in on them, once or twice—just for the fun of seeing them feel nervous. You never saw two generals and a captain look more like schoolboys caught in an orchard. They didn't know what I was going to do with them."

He snorted contemptuously. "They thought there was n't anything going on in the world but them and their fool war. Huh!

"They jumped near Mill Creek. I heard afterwards they were badly shaken up, but they made off down to the river and got across to a Mrs. Ludlow's—where they were expected. Next day, when it was in the papers that they had escaped from the prison, I reported about the four drovers who had jumped from the train. That was all I ever had to do with John Morgan. Never bothered me any more."

The daughter added: "Except that I was born in the room in Covington where his body had been laid out."

"Well," the lieutenant said, "you 'd have made a great soldier."