And let me tell you, one day my coachman will pull up at the door of your farm-house and take you and your wife and children in my coach and four for a drive--perhaps to see the laying of the corner-stone of the United States court-house in Lithopolis.

I go from your ken, but I shall return--good-by." I was sorry to see him go.

It was lonesome without him; and I was troubled by my live stock.

I soon saw that I was getting so many cattle that without help in driving them I should be obliged to leave and come back for some of them.

I found a farmer named Westervelt who lived by the roadside, and had come to Iowa from Herkimer County, in York State.
He even knew some of the relatives of Captain Sproule; so in view of the fact that he seemed honest, I left my cattle with him, all but four cows, and promised to return for them not later than the middle of July.
I made him give me a receipt for them, setting forth just what the bargain was, and I paid him then and there for looking out for them--and N.V.Creede said afterward that the thing was a perfectly good legal document, though badly spelled.
"It calls," said he, "for an application of the doctrine of _idem sonans_--but it will serve, it will serve." I marveled that the Gowdy carriage still was astern of me after all this time; and speculated as to whether there was not some other road between Dyersville and Independence, by which they had passed me; but a few miles east of Independence they came up behind me as I lay bogged down in a slew, and drove by on the green tough sod by the roadside.