"
"HOW'D you come?"
"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati."
"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the MORNIN'--in a
canoe?"
"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'."
"It's a lie."
Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an
old man and a preacher.
"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint that
mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and he was up
there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and
a boy."
The doctor he up and says:
"Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?"
"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know him
perfectly easy."
It was me he pointed at. The doctor says:
"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if
THESE two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's our duty
to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into this
thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We'll take these
fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I reckon
we'll find out SOMETHING before we get through."
It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends; so we
all started. It was about sundown.
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