noon
_ Twenty-six _ During the next month the colonel made several attempts to see Fetters , but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting . He finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton , who ascertained that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week , at Carthage , the county seat of the adjoining county , where the colonel had been once before to inspect a cotton mill . Thither the colonel went on the day of the opening of court . His train reached town toward noon and he went over to the hotel . He wondered if he would find the proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before . But the buggy was gone from before the piazza , and there was a new face behind the desk . The colonel registered , left word that he would be in to dinner , and then went over to the court house , which lay behind the trees across the square .