“Well, it is the colt old skin-flint Turner cheated me out of, last year.”
“I think you told me something about it, but don't recollect the particulars; though I had then no doubt, I believe, but the old man wronged you, as I understood you worked very hard for him through the season.”
“I did, like a niggar—cause he promised to give me this colt, then a little snubby three-year-old, for my summer's work, if I would stay and work well for him, which I did, as I said. Well, supposing the colt was to be mine, without any mistake, I made a sight of her, named her Lightfoot, fed her, got her as tame as a dog, then trained her to understand certain words and signs, which I at last got her to obey; and whether it was to trot, run, or jump fences, she would do it as no other critter could. But just as I had got her to mind and love me, as I did her, my time was out; and I went to settle off matters with the old man, and tell him I was going to take her off with me, when—rot his pictur!—he pretended he had forgot all about his promise to let me have her, and forbid my touching her, saying he had paid me all I earnt in the old clothes which he urged on to me, against my will, and which were not worth one week's work, as true as the book, Harry. Well, I couldn't help crying, to be cheated so, and, what was worse, to lose Lightfoot. But it did no good. I had to come away without her, or any other pay; and, from that time, I haven't seen her till to-day.”
“But you have not now stole and run away with her, I trust Bart?”
“No; she run away with me,” replied Bart, roguishly, “as I can prove; for I hollered whoa all the time, as loud as I could yell.”
“But how came you mounted upon her at all?”
“Well, Harry, that brings me to the worst and best part of my story, all in one; and here goes for it.”
Bart, in his own peculiar manner, then related, with great accuracy, the particulars of his arrest and escape from the tories, as we have already described them in the preceding chapter, merely explaining, in addition, that Lightfoot well understood the game, and knew she was to obey the signs he secretly gave her with his feet and hands, however loud he, or others, might cry whoa or any of the terms usually addressed to horses. He then proceeded:—
“Well, you see, as soon as I got over the hill, out of sight, I looked out for a hard, stony place, where Lightfoot couldn't be tracked; and, soon finding one, I leaped her over the fence, and made full speed for the woods, which I luckily reached jest in time to wheel round in safety, and see them thundering along by, in the road, after me. I then took it leisurely off in this direction, contriving to keep mostly in the woods, where I had learnt Lightfoot, in riding after the cows, last summer, to be as much at home in as in the road.”
“And what do you propose to do with this horse now?” asked Woodburn.