“Oh, yes, ma’am.”
“Then saddle the mare for me at once and—stay! can you go with me?”
“Positive got t’ go wid yo’, miss. Ab-so-lum-lute-ly,” declared the negro, gravely. “Dem’s ma ’structions f’om Patrick Henry.”
“All right, Toby. I want to go back to that cotton warehouse where we stopped this morning. I forgot something.”
“Ready in a pig’s wink, Miss Ruth,” declared the young negro, and ran off to saddle the bay mare and get, for himself, a wicked looking speckled mule.
The bay mare felt just as much refreshed by her siesta as Ruth did. She started when Ruth was in the saddle, seemingly with a determination to break her own record for speed. The girl of the Red Mill, her hat off, her hair flying, and her eyes and cheeks aglow, looked back to see what had become of Toby and the speckled mule.
But she need not have worried about them. Toby had no saddle, and only a rope bridle; but he clung to the mule like a limpet to a rock, with his great-toes between two ribs, “tick’lin’ ob ‘im up!” as he expressed it to the laughing Ruth, when at last she brought the mare to a halt in sight of the river.
“Dishyer mu-el,” declared Toby, “I s’pec could beat out dat mare on a long lane; but I got t’ hol’ Mistah Mu-el in, ’cause Patrick Henry done tol’ me hit ain’ polite t’ ride ahaid ob de quality.”
He dropped respectfully to the rear when they started again, only calling out to Ruth the turns to take as they rode on. In half an hour they were in sight of the cotton warehouse.