Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/45

 he reached the top. Then I saw him throw up his hands and sink to the ground. It scared me, I'll admit it. I had been writing yellow stuff so long that I was quite hysterical. I guess it wouldn't have surprised me much if a gang of heathens had appeared on the summit with back hair down and scalping-knives up. At last I made a détour and crawled up to him. Hang me if he wasn't reading a portion of a newspaper that Tib had discarded from the sweat-band of his hat when we first sighted the burgh. As he read I could hear grunts of surprise and exclamations of anger. I recognized him as Reuben, the young man who had originally objected to our tarrying in the Hollow.

"‘The bearers were veterans of the North an' South. The men who'd fought under him an' agin him bared their heads in mutual sorrer an' respect,' he slowly spelled out, and I realized he had hit upon a description of some military funeral. 'The strife an' anger of '61 was no more,' he continued. 'The last few survivors of the Blue an' the Gray hobbled slowly along an' were brothers.'

"Then it sunk into my brain that he had discovered our hoax and knew that the Civil War had ended.

"With great stealth I made a bee-line for the settlement, where I found Tib explaining the general situation to his amazed whiskers, the Deacon. Clutching his arm, I tore him away, saying to the