"Did you"--he began, and stopped; "did you notice a"--he stopped again.

"What, a leather-curtained spring-wagon?"

"No-o!" he said, as if nobody but a gaping idiot would expect anybody
not a gaping idiot to notice a leather-curtained spring-wagon. "No-o!
did you notice the brown horse that man was riding who just now passed
you as you turned off the road?"

No, I barely remembered the rider had generously moved aside to let me
go by. In pure sourness at the poverty of my dress and the perfection of
his, I had avoided looking at him higher than his hundred-dollar boots.
My feet were in uncolored cowhide, except the toes.

"He noticed you," said Gholson; "he looked back at you and your bay.
Wouldn't you like to turn back and see his horse?"

"Why, hardly, if I'm behindhand now. Is it so fine as that?"

"Well, no. It's the horse he captured the time he got the Yankee who had
him prisoner."

"Who?" I cried. "What! You don't mean to say--was that Lieutenant
Ferry?"

"Yes, so called. He wa'n't a lieutenant then, he was a clerk, like you
or me."

"Oh, I wish I had noticed him!"