The hotel was at the farther end of
the settlement toward the Carquinez Woods, and as Wynn had nearly
reached it he was recalled to himself by the sounds of hoofs and wheels
rapidly approaching from the direction of the Excelsior turnpike. Wynn
made no doubt it was the sheriff and Brace. To avoid recognition at
that moment, he whipped up his horse, intending to keep the lead until
he could turn into the first cross-road. But the coming travelers had
the fleetest horse; and finding it impossible to distance them, he
drove close to the ditch, pulling up suddenly as the strange vehicle
was abreast of him, and forcing them to pass him at full speed, with
the result already chronicled. When they had vanished in the darkness,
Mr. Wynn, with a heart overflowing with Christian thankfulness and
universal benevolence, wheeled round, and drove back to the hotel he
had already passed. To pull up at the veranda with a stentorian shout,
to thump loudly at the deserted bar, to hilariously beat the panels of
the landlord's door, and commit a jocose assault and battery upon that
half-dressed and half-awakened man, was eminently characteristic of
Wynn, and part of his amiable plans that morning.
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