What he was going to do, how he could hope to combat the obstacles which had arisen was more than he could tell.

He had gone into the West, believing, at worst, that he would be forced to become the general factotum of his own business.
Now he found there was not even a business; his very foundations had been swept from beneath him, leaving only the determination, the grim, earnest resolution to succeed where all was failure and to fight to victory--but how?
Personally, he could not answer the question, and he longed for the sight of the shambling little station at Tabernacle, with Ba'tiste, in answer to the telegram he had sent from Chicago, awaiting him with the buggy from camp.

And Ba'tiste was there, to boom at him, to call Golemar's attention to the fact that a visit to a physician in Boston had relieved the bandaged arm of all except the slightest form of a splint, and to literally lift Houston into the buggy, tossing his baggage in after him, then plump in beside him with excited happiness.
"_Bon_!" he rumbled.

"It is good you are back.

Ba'teese, he was lonely.