As the colonel stood in the door of the principal saloon, where the stage always stopped, the Challenge Hill constable was seen to approach the colonel, and tap him on the shoulder, upon which all men who had bet that the colonel was dodging somebody claimed the stakes. But those who stood near the colonel heard the constable say:
"Colonel, I take it all back, an' I own up fair an' square. When I seed you git out of Challenge Hill, it come to me all of a sudden that you might be in the road-agent business, so I followed you--duty, you know. But after I seed you sell Tipsie, I knowed I was on the wrong trail. I wouldn't suspect you now if all the stages in the State was robbed; an' I'll give you satisfaction any way you want it."
"It's all right," said the colonel, with a smile. The constable afterward said that nobody had any idea of how curiously the colonel smiled when his beard was off. "Give this fifty to Jim Perkins fust time yer see him? I'm leavin' the State."
Suddenly the stage pulled up at the door with a crash, and the male passengers hurried into the saloon, in a state of utter indignation and impecuniosity.
The story of the robbery attracted everybody, and during the excitement the colonel slipped quietly out, and opened the door of the stage. The old lady started, and cried:
And the colonel, jumping into the stage, and putting his arms tenderly about the trembling form of the old lady, exclaimed:
[Illustration: THE OLD LADY CRIED, "GEORGE!" AND THE COLONEL EXCLAIMED, "MOTHER!"]
Excitement? The venerable Deacon Twinkham, the oldest inhabitant, said there had not been such an excitement at Hardhack since the meeting-house steeple blew down in a terrible equinoctial, forty-seven years before.
Even a larger town than Hardhack would have experienced unusual agitation at seeing one of its own boys, who had a few years before gone away poor, slender and twenty, come back with broad shoulders, a full beard, and a pocketful of money, dug out of the ugly hills of Nevada.
But even the return of Nathan Brown, in so unusual a condition for a Hardhackian to be found in, was not the fullness of Hardhack's excitement, for Nathan had brought with him Tom Crewne and Harry Faxton, two friends he had made during his absence, and both of them broad-shouldered, full-bearded, and auriferous as Nathan himself.