"Were I to tell you, you would still be as ignorant as I am concerning your identity. Let the boy go on in peace. When he has been gone ten minutes you shall follow if you wish."
Austin Goings looked from the speaker to the astonished postboy, and then back to the old hermit, the squirrels all the while keeping up a continuous chattering, as they ran excitedly to and fro.
Finally he said:
"It may be best to humor the old man, Dix Lewis; so ride on, and I will abide his pleasure. I will not harm him, neither shall he me."
Little Snap was impatient to go on, and though not without some misgivings, he resumed his tedious journey toward Kanawha Narrows.
Looking back as he turned an angle in the road, the last that he saw of the singular twain they had not moved.
Old Solitaire was still holding the stranger's horse by the bit, while the horseman was gazing intently at him.
"It all beats me!" thought Little Snap. "I don't see as I can do any better than to keep on. I think Old Solitaire is able to take care of himself. At any rate, Tom, you and I have evidently all we can look after."
The postboy found that the account of the flood in Tripping Waters Valley had preceded him to Greenbrier, and the postmistress asked him for the full particulars.
What a ride that must have been, Dix! I don't see how you escaped. But have you heard," she continued, lowering her voice to a whisper, "that any one was concerned in the affair. I mean that any one had tampered with the dam?"