"Sh--sh--sh!"
With the red streaks of dawn Captain Mayhall Wells was pacing up and
down in front of Flitter Bill's store, a gaping crowd about him, and the
shattered remnants of the army drawn up along Roaring Fork in the rear.
An hour later Flitter Bill rode calmly in.
"I stayed all night down the valley," said Flitter Bill. "Uncle Jim
Richmond was sick. I hear you had some trouble last night, Captain
Wells." The captain expanded his chest.
"Trouble!" he repeated, sarcastically. And then he told how a charging
horde of daredevils had driven him from camp with overwhelming numbers
and one piece of artillery; how he had rallied the army and fought them
back, foot by foot, and put them to fearful rout; how the army had
fallen back again just when the Kentuckians were running like sheep, and
how he himself had stayed in the rear with Lieutenant Boggs and
Lieutenant Skaggs, "to cover their retreat, suh," and how the purveyor,
if he would just go up through the Gap, would doubtless find the cannon
that the enemy had left behind in their flight. It was just while he was
thus telling the tale for the twentieth time that two figures appeared
over the brow of the hill and drew near--Hence Sturgill on horseback and
Tallow Dick on foot.
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