n, lazy eyes singled out an immense yellow horse and
rider from among the luxurious turnouts. "Jack!" he exclaimed gladly.
"The Storm Centre," he improvised, as the new comer approached,
"straight as Tecumseh, a great bronzed Ajax, mighty thewed, as strong of
hand as of digestion--w'y, bless my soul, the boy looks pow'ful
dejected, knocked plum' galley-west! I never saw him look like that
before."

Man and horse had come all night from Cuernavaca. But Din Driscoll never
tired, wherefore Boone knew that _something_ was the matter. At the
doorway Driscoll flung himself from the saddle, gave the bridle to a
porter of the hotel, and was following, his face the picture of gloom,
when he heard the words, "How' yuh, Jack?" His brow cleared in the
instant. "Shanks!" he cried, gripping the other's hand.

Mr. Boone untwined his boots and for the first time during a half-hour
stood in them. As he shook Driscoll's hand, he shook his own head, and
at last observed, in the way of continuing a conversation, "It was the
almightiest soaking rain, Din, for the land's sake!" And he shook his
head again, quite mournfully.

Driscoll had not seen Mr. Boone since leaving Shelby's camp back in
Arkansas. He naturally wished to know what was being talked about. But
his woeful friend only kept on, "It wet all Texas, heavier'n a sponge,
and," he added, "they ain't coming."

"Shanks! You don't mean----"

"Don't I? But I do. They're a surrendered army. The whole
Trans-Mississippi Department of 'em, pretty near. But not quite, bear
that in----"

"But the rain? What in----"

"What did you come down here for, I'd like to know? To say how the
Trans-Mississippi wouldn't surrender, didn't you? Well?"

"Oh, go on!"

"Well, it rained, I tell you. Didn't it rain before Waterloo? Didn't it
now?"

Mr. Boone believed in trouble as an antidote for trouble. When he had
stirred Driscoll out of his dejection enough to make him want to fight,
he deigned to clear the atmosphere of that befogging downpour in Texas.

"You rec'lect, Din, that there war god we put up in Kirby Smith's place,
who so dashingly would lead us on to Mexico?"

"Buckner, yes."

"Him, Simon Bolivar B., whose gold lace glittered as though washed by
the dew and wiped with the sunshine----"

"Now, Shanks, drop it!" Driscoll was referring to the editorial pen
which Mr. Boone would clutch and get firmly in hand with the least rise
of emotion. Against his other conversation, the clut