It is the elixir of the
Miamis. Only their consecrated medicine men hold the recipe. The
stimulation is but temporary."
Just then someone knocked on the door. Father Beret opened it to
one of Hamilton's aides,
"Your pardon, Father, but hearing Captain Farnsworth's voice I
made bold to knock."
"What is it, Bobby?" Farnsworth called out.
"Nothing, only the Governor has been having you looked for in
every nook and corner of the fort and town. You'd better report at
once, or hell be having us drag the river for your body."
"All right, Lieutenant, go back and keep mum, that's a dear boy,
and I'll shuffle into Colonel Hamilton's august presence before
many minutes."
The aide laughed and went his way whistling a merry tune.
"Now I am sure to get what I deserve, with usury at forty per cent
in advance," said Farnsworth dryly, shrugging his shoulders with
undissembled dread of Hamilton's wrath. But the anticipation was
not realized. The Governor received Farnsworth stiffly enough, yet
in a way that suggested a suppressed desire to avoid explanations
on the Captain's part and a reprimand on his own. In fact,
Hamilton was hoping that something would turn up to shield him
from the effect of his terrible midnight adventure, which seemed
the darker the more he thought of it. He had a slow, numb
conscience, lying deep where it was hard to reach, and when a
qualm somehow entered it he endured in secret what most men would
have cast off or confessed.
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