He was the best man we had in this ornery hole, and he was too good for us, and so we've maybe let him get killed, and maybe I'm to blame.

But I'm going to find him, and if he's hurt--damn _me_! I'm going to have a hand on the rope that lifts the men that did it, if I have to go to Rouen to put it there! After that I'll answer for my fault, not before!" He threw himself on his horse and was gone.

Soon the room was emptied, as the patrons of the bar returned to the search, and only Mr.Wilkerson and the landlord remained, the bar being the professional office, so to speak, of both.
Wilkerson had a chair in a corner, where he sat chanting a funeral march in a sepulchral murmur, allowing a parenthetical _hic_ to punctuate the dirge in place of the drum.

Whenever a batch of newcomers entered, he rose to drink with them; and, at such times, after pouring off his liquor with a rich melancholy, shedding tears after every swallow, he would make an exploring tour of the room on his way back to his corner, stopping to look under each chair inquiringly and ejaculate: "Why, where kin he be!" Then, shaking his head, he would observe sadly: "Fine young man, he was, too; fine young man.

Pore fellow! I reckon we hain't a-goin' to git him." At eleven o'clock.