Never did happier people go to bed. The last sleep in Hotel Helicon proved to be the sweetest. Far in the night, it is true, some one sang loudly but plaintively under Miss Moyne's window until the sheriff awoke and sallied forth to end the serenade with some remarks about "cracking that eejit's gourd;" but there was no disturbance, the sounds blending sweetly with the dreams of the slumberers. They all knew that it was Crane, poor fellow, who had finally torn himself away from his father's fascinating uncle. XXI. The retreat from Hotel Helicon was picturesque in the extreme. There had been much difficulty in finding vehicles to take the retiring guests down the mountain to the railway station, but Tolliver had come to the rescue with a mule, a horse, a cart, and an ox. These, when added to the rather incongruous collection of wagons and carts from every other available source, barely sufficed. Tolliver led the mule with Ferris on its back, while Miss Crabb and Miss Stackpole occupied the ox-cart, the former acting as driver. "Good-bye and good luck to ye!" the sheriff called after them. "Mighty sorry ter discommode ye, but juty air juty, an' a officer air no respecter of persons." Mrs. Nancy Jones Black sat beside Crane in a rickety wagon, and between jolts gave him many a word of wisdom on the subject of strong drink, which the handsome Bourbon poet stowed away for future consideration. Dunkirk and Miss Moyne rode upon the "hounds" of a naked wood-wain, as happy as two blue-birds in April, while Bartley Hubbard, with little Mrs. Philpot and her child and some other ladies, was in an old weather-beaten barouche, a sad relic of the _ante-bellum_ times. For the rest there were vehicles of every sort save the comfortable sort, and all went slowly winding and zig-zagging down Mt. Boab toward the valley and the river. Why pursue them? Once they all looked up from far down the slope and saw Hotel Helicon shining like a castle of gold in the flood of summer sunlight. Its verandas were empty, its windows closed, but the flag on its wooden tower still floated bravely in the breeze, its folds appearing to touch the soft gray-blue sky. * * * * * A year later Crane and Peck met at Saratoga and talked over old times. At length coming down to the present, Crane said: "Of all of us who were guests on Mt. Boab, Miss Moyne is the only one who has found success. Her story, _On The Heights_, is in its seventieth edition." "Oh, well," said Peck, "that goes without the saying. Anybody could succeed with her chance." "_Her_ chance, why do you say that?" "Haven't you heard? Ah, I see that the news has not yet penetrated the wilds of Kentucky. The open secret of Miss Moyne's success lies in the fact that she has married her publisher." A silence of some minutes followed, during which Crane burned his cigar very rapidly. "What fools we were," Peck presently ventured, "to be fighting a duel about her!"