Zeke's tractability increased the favorable impression already made on the officer by the mountaineer's wholesome face and modest, manly bearing. It was evident that this was no ordinary rake-helly boomer come to town. There was, too, the black bag to witness that the prisoner was an honest voyager. On the way to the station, the constable listened with unusual patience to Zeke's curt account of the misadventure, and the narrative was accepted as truth--the more readily by reason of some slight prejudice against the dog, which had failed as an exploiter of heroism. In consequence, the policeman grew friendly, and promised intercession in his captive's behalf. This was the more effective when, on arrival at the station-house, it was learned that the girl with the dog had not appeared. Nor was there sign of her after a period of waiting. The sergeant at the desk decided that there could be no occasion to hold the prisoner. But he frowned on the deadly weapon, which the usual search had revealed.
"'Twon't do for you to go totin' that cannon promiscuous," he declared. "You shore don't need a gun--you shore do need breeches. What's the answer?... Hock the gun, and buy some pants."
Thus simply did an alert mind solve all difficulties of the situation.
So in the end, Zeke issued safely from his first bout with mischance and found himself well content, for his dress now was more like that of the men about him. The new trousers were full length, which the jeans had not been, and the creases down the legs were in the latest style. The salesman had so stated, and Zeke observed with huge satisfaction that the stiffness of the creases seemed to mark the quality of the various suits visible in the streets. And his own creases were of the most rigid! Zeke for the first time in his life, felt that warm thrill which characterizes any human integer, whether high or low, when conscious of being especially well dressed.
Followed an interval of loitering. The sights of the town formed an endless panorama of wonder to the lad's eager vision. Though he was a year past the age of man's estate, this was his first opportunity of beholding a town of any size, of seeing face to face things of which he had heard a little, had read more. His fresh, receptive mind scanned every detail with fierce concentration of interest, and registered a multitude of vivid impressions to be tenaciously retained in memory.
And ever with him, as he roamed the streets, went a tall slender girl, barefooted, garbed in homespun, with great dark brown eyes that looked tenderly on him from beneath the tumbled bronze masses of her hair. No passer-by saw her, but the mountaineer knew her constant presence, and with her held voiceless communion concerning all things that he beheld. His heart exulted proudly over the bewildering revelations of many women, both beautiful and marvelously clad in fine raiment--for this girl that walked with him was more radiantly fair than any other.