“'Well, Herman, it's purty tough on you, anyway you take it. I don't rightly know all the rules o' this here war business yit, myself; but I reckin ef it was made clear to the higher authorities that you was sort of drug into this affair under false pretenses, ez it were, why, mebbe they mout muster you out and give you an honourable discharge--providin', of course, you pledged yourself not to take up arms fur the other side, which, in a way of speakin', would make you a deserter. We-all know you ain't no coward, and we'll all testify to it ef our testimony is needed. I reckon the rest of the boys'll understand your position in the matter; in fact, I'll undertake to make 'em understand.' “He asts me then: 'Whut iss false pretenses?'” And I explains to him the best I kin; and he thinks that p'int over fur a minute or two. Then he looks up at me sideways frum under the brim of his cap, and I kin see by the moonlight he's blushin' ez red ez a beet, and grinnin' that shy little snaggle-teethed grin of hisn. “'Pilly,' he says, 'mebbe so you remember dot young lady vot put her arms round me dot night--de von vot gif to me a kiss fur kindness? She iss on de Deexie side--yes?--no?' “And I says to him: 'You kin bet your sweet life she is!'” “'All right!' he says. 'I am much lonesome dot night--and she kiss me! All right, den. I fights fur her! I sticks mit Deexie!' And when he says that he makes a salute, and I notice he's quit grinnin'.” “And did he stick?” I asked. Before he answered, the old Judge drained his tin cup to the bottom. “Did he stick? Huh! Four long hard bitter years he stuck--that's all! Boy, you mout not think it, to see old Herman waddlin' acrost that Oak Hall Clothin' Store to sell some young buck from the country a pair of twenty-five-cent galluses or a celluloid collar; but I'm here to tell you he's one of the stickin'est white men that ever drawed the breath of life. Lew Lake, here, will tell you the same thing. Mebbe it's because he is sech a good sticker that he's one of the wealthiest men in this county to-day. I only wisht I had to spend on sweetenin' drams whut he lays-'by every year. But I don't begrudge it to him.” Through the grove ran an especially loud outburst of cheering, and on top of it we heard the scuffling of many yeomen feet. Judge Priest slid off the log and stood up and stretched his pudgy legs. “That must mean the speakin's over and the rally's breakin' up,” he said. “Come along, son, and ride on back to town with us in my old buggy. I reckin there's room fur you to scrouge in between me and Doctor Lake, ef you'll make yourself small.” The October sun, slanting low, made long stippled lanes between the tree trunks, so that we waded waist-deep in a golden haze as we made for the place where Judge Priest's Mittie May was tethered to a sapling. The old white mare recognised her master from afar, and whinnied a greeting to him, and I was moved to ask another question. To me that tale stood uncompleted: