THE GOLDEN DAY OF COLONEL POTTS I awoke the next morning under most vivid portents of calamity.

I believe I am neither notional, nor given to small, vulgar superstitions, but I have learned that this peculiar sensation is never without significance.

I remember that I felt it the night our wagon bridge went out by high water.

I tried to read the presentiment as I dressed.

But not until I was shaving did it relate itself to the going out of Potts.
Then the illumination came with a speed so electric that I gashed my chin under the shock of it.