"Vut fur? You don't vant heem?" he gasped.
"Yes, I do," I said, hotly. "He's mine. I've paid for him and I want
to take him over yonder and rub him under the nose of that villain that
induced me to go hunting in an automobile and steered me on the premises
of a damned Dago who keeps registered cats that look exactly like coons
when up a tree."
He thought I was complimenting him.
"Voila--I t'ank you," he said, bowing again, with his hand on his
stomach.
I hunted around an hour before I went to the machine. I waited to cool
off. Dick found a fine covey, and I missed them right and left. I had
lost my nerve and my luck.
When I reached the machine, Horace was in, blinking, and we said not a
word. It was my time to freeze. Smith had run out from town and fixed
it. A little wire the size of a pencil-point had got an inch out of
place, and it had been as dead as a log wagon on us.
It was now exactly 3:30, but we decided we still had a chance to get a
covey. We made the next three miles in beautiful time, meeting only one
man driving a game, high-headed horse that swept by us without giving us
the least notice.
"If they were all bred like that one," I said, "a man in a machine might
think he had some rights on the road."
"Glad you are beginning to see the other side," said Horace.
"We'll be there by four," he said; "just the time the birds begin to
feed good. Oh, we'll get a few yet. It's a long lane, you know. Our
luck is turning."
"This is fun," I said, as we flew along the newly-graveled road parallel
with the creek, "fine, give it to her."
The scenery was beautiful; the bluffs were draped in clustering red
berries, and the woods old gold and crimson. The water foamed over the
lime rocks, glowing iridescent in the sun, and the air was bracing as we
buzzed along.
_Honk! Honk!_ "Let her out!" I cried, as a touch of speed mania got
into me. "Say, I see how it is," I said, "why a man soon gets the speed
mania in him. Horsemen can't blame you, for they have got it, too."
"Oh, we're riding," he cried. "You have an hour yet."
We were indeed riding, along a narrow path of the road rising to a
rather abrupt hill. Rising and peeping over, I saw a long procession of
creeping things, their ears just shining above the hill we were both
ascending.
"Halt! Stop!" I cried.
It was too late, everlastingly too late! We were meeting a negro
funeral procession, that of good old Uncle Thomas, as good an old time
darky as ever lived. I had known him well, a fellow of infinite jest.
But I did not recognize him promptly now.