“Don’ look dat way, look dis way.”
Whirling the white boy on the seat Amos pointed to the western horizon. The thin sickle of a new moon was just visible.
“Yo’ come nigh seem’ dat moon ober yo’ right shoulder. Dat’d sho’ly brung us bad luck.”
“What shoulder did you see it over?”
“I almos’ seen it ober de left shoulder. I reckon we’s all right. But I’s kind o’ skeered. Dat crazy ole man Keyhole boun’ to come back.”
But if he had come back Amos would have been too tired to recognize the ghost of the old knight. Still sucking at the cinnamon drops he soon fell asleep. When he awoke Morey was dickering with the half-asleep owner of a small hotel in Fairfax. A little of the young Virginian’s assurance was gone. He rather humbly inquired the cost of lodging and breakfast for himself and Amos and stabling for the horse and was glad to close the contract at $1.50.
It was midnight when he at last found his bed. Mr. Perry’s hotel was really only a poorly patronized boarding house, but it gave Morey a chance to get his clothes off and to crawl into a bed in which, though it was poor enough, he could straighten out his tired legs. Amos slept on a cot outside of Morey’s door. Nor did the boys have the luxury of late hours. They were turned out promptly at the sound of a cracked bell at six o’clock. At seven o’clock, having breakfasted on a few thin slices of very fat bacon and one egg apiece, the refreshed wanderers set forth. Washington, their Mecca, was but eighteen miles away.