dventures, and try to get ahead THAT way. That bullet-wound in Tom's leg
was a tough thing for Nat Parsons to buck against, but he bucked the best
he could; and at a disadvantage, too, for Tom didn't set still as he'd
orter done, to be fair, but always got up and sauntered around and worked
his limp while Nat was painting up the adventure that HE had in
Washington; for Tom never let go that limp when his leg got well, but
practiced it nights at home, and kept it good as new right along.

Nat's adventure was like this; I don't know how true it is; maybe he got
it out of a paper, or somewhere, but I will say this for him, that he DID
know how to tell it. He could make anybody's flesh crawl, and he'd turn
pale and hold his breath when he told it, and sometimes women and girls
got so faint they couldn't stick it out. Well, it was this way, as near
as I can remember:

He come a-loping into Washington, and put up his horse and shoved out to
the President's house with his letter, and they told him the President
was up to the Capitol, and just going to start for Philadelphia--not a
minute to lose if he wanted to catch him. Nat 'most dropped, it made him
so sick. His horse was put up, and he didn't know what to do. But just
then along comes a darky driving an old ramshackly hack, and he see his
chance. He rushes out and shouts: "A half a dollar if you git me to the
Capitol in half an hour, and a quarter extra if you do it in twenty
minutes!"

"Done!" says the darky.

Nat he jumped in and slammed the door, and away they went a-ripping and
a-tearing over the roughest road a body ever see, and the racket of it
was something awful. Nat passed his arms through the loops and hung on
for life and death, but pretty soon the hack hit a rock and flew up in
the air, and the bottom fell out, and when it come down Nat's feet was on
the ground, and he see he was in the most desperate danger if he couldn't
keep up with the hack. He was horrible scared, but he laid into his work
for all he was worth, and hung tight to the arm-loops and made his legs
fairly fly. He yelled and shouted to the driver to stop, and so did the
crowds along the street, for they could see his legs spinning along under
the coach, and his head and shoulders bobbing inside through the windows,
and he was in awful danger; but the more they all shouted the more the
nigger whooped and yelled and lashed the horses and shouted, "Don't you
fret, I'se gwine to git you dah in t