Often this odd chase took
them around trees and stumps and buildings, the stranger escaping,
frequently, through some friendly door which he could lock or hold
fast. Then Thurst, knocking loudly, gave out a wild yell or two,
peered in at the nearest window, and came at last to his chair,
sorrowful and much out of breath, his tale unfinished. There was
in the man a saving element of good nature, and no one ever got
angry with him. At each new attempt be showed a grimmer
determination to finish, but even there, in a land of strong and
patient men, not one, they used to say, had ever the endurance to
hear the end of that unfinished tale.
It was not easy to dispose of cattle in the southern counties that
year, but they found a better market as they bore west, and were
across the border of Ohio when the last of the drove were sold.
That done, Trove and Thurst Tilly took the main road to Cleveland,
whence they were to return home by steamboat.
It led them into woods and by stumpy fields and pine-odoured
hamlets. The first day of their walk was rainy, and they went up a
toteway into thick timber and built a fire and kept dry and warm
until the rain ceased. That evening they fell in with emigrants on
their way to the far west.
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