e end platform of
the last car, and the train was pulling out, when I saw her go sailing
by. I stared with all my eyes, shut 'em, stared again, and there she
was! I knew there was never going to be such another, that if I lost
her I'd mourn for the rest of my days. I knew I had to have her. So I
measured my distance, risked my neck, and jumped for her. Game leg and
all I jumped, landed in the pit of a nigger's stomach, went down on
top of him, scrambled up again and was off in a jiffy, with the darky
bawling he'd been killed and the station buzzing like the judge's bees
on strike, and people hanging out of all the car windows to see who'd
been murdered.

"She led me the devil's own chase, for I'd nothing but my hat to net
her with. A dozen times I thought I had her, and missed. It was
heart-breaking. I felt I'd go stark crazy if she got away from me. I
had to get her. And the Lord was good and rewarded me for my patience,
for I caught her at the end of a mile run. I was so blown by then that
I had to lie down in the grass by the roadside and get my wind back.
Then I slid my handkerchief easy-easy under my hat, tilted it up, and
here she is! She hasn't hurt herself, for she's been quiet. She's
perfect. She hasn't rubbed off a scale. She's the size of a bat. Her
upper wings, and one lower wing, are black, curiously splotched with
yellow, and one lower wing is all yellow. She's got the usual orange
spots on the secondaries, only bigger, and blobs of gold, and the
purple spills over onto the ground-color. She's a wonder. Come on in
and let's gloat at our ease--I haven't half seen her yet! She's the
biggest and most wonderful Turnus ever made. Why, Gabriel could wear
her in his crown to make himself feel proud, because there'd be only
one like her in heaven!"

He took a step forward; but I could only stand still and blink,
owlishly. My heart pounded and the blood roared in my ears like the
wind in the pinetrees. My senses were in a most painful confusion,
with but one thought struggling clear above the turmoil: that _John
Flint had come back_.

"But you didn't go!" I stammered. "Oh, John Flint, John Flint, you
didn't go!"

He snorted. "Catch me running away like a fool when a six-inch
off-color swallow-tail flirts herself under my nose and dares me to
catch her! You'd better believe I didn't go!"

And then I knew with a great uprush of joy that Slippy McGee himself
had gone instead, and the three-o'clock express was b