“Git up!”

The coach moved away—­slowly at first—­from the front door of the large, rectangular, unpainted Red Owl Hotel, dragging its wheels heavily through the soft turf of a Main street from which the cotton-wood trees had been cut down, but in which the stumps were still standing, and which remained as innocent of all pavement as when, three years before, the chief whose name it bore, loaded his worldly goods upon the back of his oldest and ugliest wife, slung his gun over his shoulder, and started mournfully away from the home of his fathers, which he, shiftless fellow, had bargained away to the white man for an annuity of powder and blankets, and a little money, to be quickly spent for whisky.  And yet, I might add digressively, there is comfort in the saddest situations.  Even the venerable Red Owl bidding adieu to the home of his ancestors found solace in the sweet hope of returning under favorable circumstances to scalp the white man’s wife and children.

“Git up, thair!  G’lang!” The long whip swung round and cracked threateningly over the haunches of the leaders, making them start suddenly as the coach went round a corner and dipped into a hole at the same instant, nearly throwing the driver, and the passenger who was enjoying the outride with him, from their seats.

“What a hole!” said the passenger, a studious-looking young man, with an entomologist’s tin collecting-box slung over his shoulders.

The driver drew a long breath, moistened his lips, and said in a cool and aggravatingly deliberate fashion: 

“That air blamed pollywog puddle sold las’ week fer tew thaousand.”

[Illustration:  The superior being.]

“Dollars?” asked the young man.

Jim gave him an annihilating look, and queried:  “Didn’ think I meant tew thaousand acorns, did ye?”

“It’s an awful price,” said the abashed passenger, speaking as one might in the presence of a superior being.

Jim was silent awhile, and then resumed in the same slow tone, but with something of condescension mixed with it: 

“Think so, do ye?  Mebbe so, stranger.  Fool what bought that tadpole lake done middlin’ well in disposin’ of it, how-sumdever.”

Here the Superior Being came to a dead pause, and waited to be questioned.

“How’s that?” asked the young man.

After a proper interval of meditation, Jim said:  “Sol’ it this week.  Tuck jest twice what he invested in his frog-fishery.”

“Four thousand?” said the passenger with an inquisitive and surprised rising inflection.

“Hey?” said Jim, looking at him solemnly.  “Tew times tew use to be four when I larnt the rewl of three in old Varmount.  Mebbe ’taint so in the country you come from, where they call a pail a bucket.”

The passenger kept still awhile.  The manner of the Superior Being chilled him a little.  But Whisky Jim graciously broke the silence himself.