The word "again" seemed suspicious. I began to wonder: and before the ceremony was over, I reading from the book of instructions, and people interrupting with their jokes, I saw that this meant a good deal to the Blivens. Mollie's voice trembled as she said "I do!"; and the doctor's hand was not steady as he took hers. I asked myself what had become of the man who had made the attack on Bliven as he stood in line for his mail at the Dubuque post-office away back there in 1855. "Don't forget my certificate, Jake," said Mrs. Bliven, as they sat down; and I had to write it out and give it to her. "And remember the report of it to the county clerk," said Henderson L. Burns, who held that office himself. "The Doc will kick out of the supper unless you do everything." I did not forget the report, and I suppose it is there in the old records to this day. "We got word," whispered Mrs. Bliven to me as she went away, "that I have been a widow for more than a year. You've been a good friend to me, Jake[16]!" [16] There is no record of this marriage in the clerk's office; where it was regarded, of course, as a joke. This was probably a unique case of a secret marriage made in public; but there is no doubt as to its validity. The editor remembers the Blivens as respected citizens. They are dead long since, and left no descendants. Otherwise the historian would not have told their story--which is not illustrative of anything usual in our early history; but shows that in Iowa as in other new countries there were those who were escaping from their past.--G.v.d.M. I shall not close this history, without clearing up my record as to the mares, Susie and Winnie, and the cutter, and Nick, the black-and-tan, that saved Virginia's fingers from freezing, and the robes. First, I kept the property, and every horse on the farm is descended from Susie and Winnie. Second, I paid Buck Gowdy all the outfit was worth, though he never knew it, and never would have taken pay: I drove a bunch of cattle over into his corn-field the next fall and left them just before day one morning, and he took them up, advertised them as estrays, and finally, as N.V. says, reduced them to possession. And third, they were legally mine, anyhow; for when I got home, I found this paper lying on the bed, where he had slept those two nights when we were nesting in the straw-pile: BILL OF SALE In consideration of one lesson in the manly art of self-defense, of two days' board and lodging, and of one dollar ($1.00) to me in hand by J.T. Vandemark, the receipt of which is hereby acknowledged, I hereby sell and transfer to said J.T. Vandemark, possession having already been given, the following described personal property, to wit: 1 Bay Mare called Susie, weight 1150 lbs., with star in forehead, and white left hind foot, five years old; 1 Bay Mare called Winnie, weight 1175 lbs., with star in forehead, and two white hind feet, six years old;