d give him some trouble. But
strangely enough, this struggling crowd seemed to help him along. He saw
men all around him with uniforms on, and wearing queerly shaped hats.
They opened a way before him and closed in behind him. He heard a sharp
cry, "Prisoner escaped!" and he heard the energetic commands of the
officer in charge, but still the crowd opened a way in front of him, and
closed up behind him. This pathway, formed of struggling firemen, led
Gabriel away from the main entrance, and conducted him to the side,
where there was an opening between the pillars. Not twenty feet away was
the countryman with his queer-looking team. He was still complaining of
the way he had been taken in by the town fellers who had told him that
the station was a cotton warehouse.

Gabriel recognised the voice and ran toward it, jumped into the waggon,
and crawled under the cover. "Now here--now here!" cried the countryman,
"you kin rob me of my money, an' make a fool out'n me about your cotton
warehouses, but be jigged ef I'll let you take my waggin an' team. I
dunner what you're up to, but you'll have to git out'n my waggin." With
that he stripped the cover from the top, and, lo! there was no one
there!

He turned to the astonished crowd with open mouth. "Wher' in the nation
did he go?" he cried. There was no answer to this, for the spectators
were as much astonished as Mr. Sanders professed to be. The man who had
crawled under the waggon-cover had disappeared.

He turned to the astonished crowd with a face on which amazement was
depicted, crying out, "Now, you see, gentlemen, what honest men have to
endyore when they come to your blame town. Whoever he is, an' wharsoever
he may be, that chap ain't up to no good." Then he looked under the
waggon and between the bales of cotton, and, finally, took the cover and
shook it out, as if it might be possible for one of the "slick city
fellers" to hide in any impossible place.

There was a tremendous uproar in the station, caused by the soldiers
trying to run over the firemen and the efforts of the firemen to prevent
them. In a short time, however, a squad of soldiers had forced
themselves through the crowd, and as they made their appearance, Mr.
Sanders gave the word to old Beck, saying as he moved off, "Ef you gents
will excuse me, I'll mosey along, an' the next time I have a crap of
cotton to sell, I'll waggin it to some place or other wher' w'arhouses
ain't depots, an' wher' jugglers d