“Very well, you can take my shingle then. There is not much more, I suppose, to be done now, only you must keep both edges between the two furrows here. They told me not to let it get away and run down into the Gully. Do you understand?”
“You bet,” replied Napoleon Pompey who knew far better than Olive could tell him just what should be done.
“I am going to get my hat and skirt. I left them near the corner of Weddell’s Gully. I think I will just run across the old field and get them: it will be much shorter than going all the way round by the furrows. It will be light enough to see yet awhile so I can follow the path through the Gully.”
Olive looked at the fire that was fast roaring its way towards the south-east, and deciding it would easily light her on her way she tripped off and disappeared in the gloom down towards the Gully.
In a few minutes Napoleon Pompey began to show signs of immense excitement.
“Golly Ned! I never seed yonder. Mis’ Ollie whar yo’ be? Come back! Come back, Mis’ Ollie! Golly! Golly!”
He ran violently backwards and forwards along his line of fire, which, however, he dared not leave, exclaiming “Golly!” and “Oh Lordy!” at every step. In a minute or two he ran into Ezra who was coming along to fetch Olive home, if she was still there.
“Lordy! dat yo’, Mas’r Ezra. Yo’ go right ’long down dish hyar Gully. Mis’ Ollie she down dar.”
Ezra was dead beat. He could scarcely drag his limbs along. The terrific exertion of that furious ploughing, coming at the end of a long and hard day’s work, had almost over-taxed even his iron frame.
“I thought I would find her here on my way home,” he said languidly. “We are pretty safe now. Tell her to come back with the others. I’m going home to get something to eat.”