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Rh sufficiently to speak. "I've been underground several miles, and I haven't had a mouthful to eat since yesterday morning!"

"Gee shoo, Allen! Wall! wall! wall! If I didn't know ye so well I'd be apt ter think ye war tellin' me a fairy tale. But I allow as how Granville Winthrop's son couldn't lie if he tried."

"I speak the truth, Ike. But where are those villains?"

"Gone, boy, gone. They knowed better nor to stay whar Ike Watson was, ho! ho!"

"They are horse thieves, and ought to be locked up."

"Thet Saul Mangle ought to be strung up, ye mean. And Darry Nodley and that coon, Jeff Jones, ain't much better. But they are gone now."

"Well, I have Paul's horse and Chet's, too, anyway," returned Allen, with a slight smile of satisfaction.

"Whar's your own horse?"

"Dead, I reckon. We went off the Upas Pass bridge together into the river, and I suppose she was drowned. Poor Lilly!"

"Off the bridge! Gee shoo! Then ye war carried down the Black Rock River?"