"I understand everything better than I did, Parker," returned Colonel Ward, feelingly, turning away wet eyes.
The astonishment in Sunkhaze settlement when the doughty ex-tyrant was borne through to the "down-country" train, accompanied by Parker and Joshua, was so intense that only the postmaster recovered himself in season to put a few leading questions. After the train had gone he announced the results of his findings to the crowd that cl.u.s.tered about him on the station platform.
"Near"s I can find out," he said, "that young Parker has been way up into the Moxie region an" found old Gid, and spent a week gettin" round him and coaxin" him to go "long with him and Josh to the city, and be fitted to new hands and feet, that, so they tell me, is so ingenious a fellow can walk round and cut his own victuals and all that. Well, that will help old Gid a little. If the blamed old sanup could only be fitted out with a new disposition at the same time, we folks round here would be more pleased to see him, come back."
"Postmaster," cried Dan Connick, who had been one of those who bore the colonel from the landing in a chair, "don"t you ever worry any more about a new disposition for Gid Ward. Those things come from the hand of G.o.d, and Colonel Gid has already been fitted out with the heart and soul of a man!"
"Then," declared Dodge, gazing to where the smoke wreaths from the departing locomotive hung above the distant treetops, "I reckon we"ve just seen in bodily shape the pa.s.sin" of the old in this section as well as the comin" of the new."
THE END