and I reckon you've heard it rumoured
around that I haven't got any more money than two good steers could
pull."

Mr. Sanders turned his horse's head in the direction that Colonel
Blasengame was going, and when they arrived at his home, he stopped at
the gate. "Mr. Sanders," he said, taking out his watch, "I'll bet you
two dollars and a half to a horn button that breakfast will be ready in
ten minutes, and that everything will be fixed as if company was
expected."

And it was true. By the time the horse had been put in the stable and
fed, breakfast was ready, and when Mr. Sanders was ushered into the
room, Mrs. Blasengame was sitting in her place at the table pouring out
coffee. She was a frail little woman, but her eyes were bright with
energy, and she greeted the unexpected guest as cordially as if he had
come on her express invitation. She had little to say at any time, but
when she spoke her words were always to the purpose.

"What did you accomplish?" she asked her husband, after Mr. Sanders, as
in duty bound, had praised the coffee and the biscuit, and the meal was
well under way.

"Nothing, honey; not a thing in the world. I thought the boys had been
carried to Atlanta, but they are at Fort Pulaski."

Mrs. Blasengame said nothing more, and the Colonel was for talking about
something else, but the curiosity of Mr. Sanders was aroused.

"What boys was you referrin' to, Colonel?" he asked.

"I don't like to tell you, Mr. Sanders," replied Colonel Blasengame,
"but if you'll take no offence, I'll say that the boys are from a little
one-horse country settlement called Shady Dale, a place where the people
are asleep day and night. A parcel of Yankees went over there the other
night, snatched four boys out of their beds, and walked off with them."

"That's so," Mr. Sanders assented.

"Yes, it's so," cried the Colonel hotly. "And it's a----" He caught the
eye of his wife and subsided. "Excuse me, honey; I'm rather wrought up
over this thing. What worries me," he went on, "is that the boys were
yerked out of bed, and carried off, and then their own families went to
sleep again. But suppose they didn't turn over and go back to sleep:
doesn't that make matters worse? I can't understand it to save my life.
Why, if it had happened here, the whole town would have been wide awake
in ten minutes, and the boys would never have been carried across the
corporation line. Tomlin is mighty near wild about it. If I hadn't gone