Mickey manifested some nervousness, but he was restrained by the coolness of Ethan, who kept his position with his eye fixed keenly upon it.
Coming at such a railroad speed, it was not long in passing the intervening space. It was yet several hundred yards distant, when Ethan Hopkins gave Mickey a ringing slap upon the shoulder.
'Jerusalem! who do ye s'pose naow, that man is sitting in the carriage and holding the reins?'
'Worrah, worrah! why do you ax me, whin I'm so frightened entirely that I don't know who I am myself?'
'Its Baldy.'
'Git out!' replied the Irishman, but added the next moment, 'am I shlaping or dhraming? It's Baldy or his ghost.'
It certainly was no ghost, judging from the manner in which it acted; for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and the two reins in his hands, just as the skillful driver controls the mettlesome horses and keeps them well in hand.
He was seated upon a large pile of wood, while near nestled a little hump-backed, bright-eyed boy, whose eyes sparkled with delight at the performance of the strange machine.
The speed of the steam man gradually slackened, until it came opposite the men, when it came to a dead halt, and the grinning 'Baldy,' as he was called, (from his having lost his scalp several years before, by the Indians), tipped his hat and said:
'Glad to see you hain't gone under yit. How'd you git along while I was gone?'