Behind its mud-and-Masonry decrepit wall that guards only the seaward
side, Adra straggles quite a distance desertward; and there are winding
streets enough to hide an army in, provided that the army did not
mind the fleas. Scamp, view-halloaing his utmost, led that most
amazing hunt a quite considerable circuit before other men and dogs,
arriving from a dozen different directions, set a limit to his
unobstructed movement.
He knew what he was after, but they did not; they had come to see.
For a moment they seemed to think that Scamp was the object of the
chase, and a dozen guns of a dozen different kinds and dates were
aimed at him.
And then, as consciousness dawns on a man recovering from choloform,
there swept over their lethargic Eastern brains the simultaneous idea
that Curley Crothers and Joe Byng were the real quarry; and--again
like men recovering from chloroform--they did not quite know what
to do. Should they slay, there was the Puncher to be reckoned with;
and the Puncher's port quick-firers could be seen commanding Adra
by any man who cared to climb the wall.
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