The Able McLaughlins
CHAPTER III
AFTER more than three months spent in hospitals, Wully came home the next March, honorably discharged from the army. His father met him at the end of the railroad, and before dawn they started westward over the all but impassable paths called roads. Rain began falling when the sun should have begun shining. Hour after slow hour of the morning their horses strained and plunged and splashed through deep, black mud. At every slough the men alighted to pull and tug at the sunken wagon, and returned bemired to their wet blankets. From noon till dusk they rode on, pulling grain sacks helmetwise down over their caps to protect the back of their necks from trickles of water, rearranging their soaked garments, hearing, when their voices fell silent, only the splashing of the horses' feet down into the thawed mud, and the sucking of the water around hoofs reluctantly lifted to take the next step. Darkness set in early, but they made the ford while there was still a soggy twilight. More soaked, more dripping, they went on, peering into the wall of blackness which settled down in front of them. They were hungry. They were tired. They were chilled to the bone. Wully's teeth chattered in spite of all he could do to prevent them. And they were both immeasur-
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