Down his beat went Thorn, reconnoitring river, road, and swamp, as thoroughly as one pair of keen eyes could do it, and came back satisfied, but still growling like a faithful mastiff on the watch; performances which he repeated at intervals till his own turn came.

“I didn’t have to go out of my own State for a wife, you’d better believe,” began Dick, with a boast, as usual; “for we raise as fine a crop of girls thar as any State in or out of the Union, and don’t mind raisin’ Cain with any man who denies it.  I was out on a gunnin’ tramp with Joe Partridge, a cousin of mine,—­poor old chap! he fired his last shot at Gettysburg, and died game in a way he didn’t dream of the day we popped off the birds together.  It ain’t right to joke that way; I won’t if I can help it; but a feller gets awfully kind of heathenish these times, don’t he?”

“Settle up them scores byme-by; fightin’ Christians scurse raound here.  Fire away, Dick.”

“Well, we got as hungry as hounds half a dozen mile from home, and when a farm-house hove in sight, Joe said he’d ask for a bite and leave some of the plunder for pay.  I was visitin’ Joe, didn’t know folks round, and backed out of the beggin’ part of the job; so he went ahead alone.  We’d come up the woods behind the house, and while Joe was foragin’, I took are connoissance.  The view was fust-rate, for the main part of it was a girl airin’ beds on the roof of a stoop.  Now, jest about that time, havin’ a leisure spell, I’d begun to think of marryin’, and took a look at all the girls I met, with an eye to business.  I s’pose every man has some sort of an idee or pattern of the wife he wants; pretty and plucky, good and gay was mine, but I’d never found it till I see Kitty; and as she didn’t see me, I had the advantage and took an extra long stare.”

“What was her good pints, hey?”

“Oh, well, she had a wide-awake pair of eyes, a bright, jolly sort of a face, lots of curly hair tumblin’ out of her net, a trig little figger, and a pair of the neatest feet and ankles that ever stepped.  ‘Pretty,’ thinks I; ‘so far so good.’  The way she whacked the pillers, shooked the blankets, and pitched into the beds was a caution; specially one blunderin’ old featherbed that wouldn’t do nothin’ but sag round in a pig-headed sort of way, that would have made most girls get mad and give up.  Kitty didn’t, but just wrastled with it like a good one, till she got it turned, banged, and spread to suit her; then she plumped down in the middle of it, with a sarcy little nod and chuckle to herself, that tickled me mightily.  ‘Plucky,’ thinks I, ’better ‘n’ better.’  Jest then an old woman came flyin’ out the back-door, callin’, ’Kitty!  Kitty!  Squire Partridge’s son’s here, ‘long with a friend; been gunnin’, want luncheon, and I’m all in the suds; do come down and see to ’em.’

“‘Where are they ?’ says Kitty, scrambling up her hair and settlin’ her gown in a jiffy, as women have a knack of doin’, you know.