"Missy Custis," he apologized, as he turned back, "I is tired mighty bad dis a'ternoon. Dat stable keeps me up half de night."
"Liquor tires you more, David," Mrs. Custis spoke, sharply; "and that tavern is no place to hire you to with your appetite for drink, as I shall tell your master."
At this moment Jimmy Phœbus observed the lean little mulatto boy who had left the hotel come up out of the swampy place in the road and exchange a look of intelligence with Dave as he rode past on the pony.
"Boy," cried Samson, "is dat de road to Laurel?"
The boy made no answer, but, looking back once, timidly, ground his heels into the pony's flank and darted into the brush towards Salisbury.
"Samson," spoke Dave, "you see dat ole woman in de cart yonder?"—he pointed to a figure ascending the rise in the ground beyond the brook—"I know her, an' she's gwyn right to Laurel. She lives dar. It's ten miles from dis yer turn-off, an' she knows all dese yer woods-roads."
"Good-bye, den, an' may you find Aunt Hominy an' de little chillen, Jimmy, an' bring dem all home to Prencess Anne from dat ar Joe Johnson!" cried Samson, and trotted his mule through the swamp and away. Jimmy Phœbus saw him overtake the old woman in the cart and begin to speak with her as the scrubby woods swallowed them in.
"What's dat he said about Joe Johnson?" observed Dave, after a bad spell of coughing, as they cleared the old church and entered the sandy pine-woods.
Mrs. Custis spoke up more promptly than Jimmy Phœbus desired, and told the negro about the escape of Hominy and the children, and the hope of Mr. Phœbus to head the party off as they ascended the Nanticoke towards the Delaware state-line.
"You don't want to git among Joe Johnson's men, boss?" said the red-eyed negro; "dey bosses all dis country heah, on boff sides o' de state-line. All dat ain't in wid dem is afraid o' dem."