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“Thank you,” says the colonel; “I believe I could relish a slice of bacon and a plate of hominy.”

“But you won’t,” says I emphatic. “Not in this camp. We soar in higher regions than them occupied by your celebrated but repulsive dish.”

While the colonel read his paper, me and Caligula took off our coats and went in for a little luncheon /de luxe/ just to show him. Caligula was a fine cook of the Western brand. He could toast a buffalo or fricassee a couple of steers as easy as a woman could make a cup of tea. He was gifted in the way of knocking together edibles when haste and muscle and quantity was to be considered. He held the record west of the Arkansas River for frying pancakes with his left hand, broiling venison cutlets with his right, and skinning a rabbit with his teeth at the same time. But I could do things /en casserole/ and /a la creole/, and handle the oil and tobasco as gently and nicely as a French /chef/.

So at twelve o’clock we had a hot lunch ready that looked like a banquet on a Mississippi River steamboat. We spread it on the tops of two or three big boxes, opened two quarts of the red wine, set the olives and a canned oyster cocktail and a ready-made Martini by the colonel’s plate, and called him to grub.

Colonel Rockingham drew up his campstool, wiped off his specs, and looked at the things on the table. Then I thought he was swearing; and I felt mean because I hadn’t taken more pains with the victuals. But he wasn’t; he was asking a blessing; and me and Caligula hung our heads, and I saw a tear drop from the colonel’s eye into his cocktail.

I never saw a man eat with so much earnestness and application–not hastily, like a grammarian, or one of the canal, but slow and appreciative, like a anaconda, or a real /vive bonjour/.

In an hour and a half the colonel leaned back. I brought him a pony of brandy and his black coffee, and set the box of Havana regalias on the table.

“Gentlemen,” says he, blowing out the smoke and trying to breathe it back again, “when we view the eternal hills and the smiling and beneficent landscape, and reflect upon the goodness of the Creator who–“

“Excuse me, colonel,” says I, “but there’s some business to attend to now”; and I brought out paper and pen and ink and laid ’em before him. “Who do you want to send to for the money?” I asks.

“I reckon,” says he, after thinking a bit, “to the vice-president of our railroad, at the general offices of the Company in Edenville.”

“How far is it to Edenville from here?” I asked.

“About ten miles,” says he.

Then I dictated these lines, and Colonel Rockingham wrote them out:

I am kidnapped and held a prisoner by two desperate outlaws in a place which is useless to attempt to find. They demand ten thousand dollars at once for my release. The amount must be raised immediately, and these directions followed. Come alone with the money to Stony Creek, which runs out of Blacktop Mountains. Follow the bed of the creek till you come to a big flat rock on the left bank, on which is marked a cross in red chalk. Stand on the rock and wave a white flag. A guide will come to you and conduct you to where I am held. Lose no time.

After the colonel had finished this, he asked permission to take on a postscript about how he was being treated, so the railroad wouldn’t feel uneasy in its bosom about him. We agreed to that. He wrote down that he had just had lunch with the two desperate ruffians; and then he set down the whole bill of fare, from cocktails to coffee. He wound up with the remark that dinner would be ready about six, and would probably be a more licentious and intemperate affair than lunch.