"Afraid something 'll happen."
"Something is sure to happen; I'm goin' to pass him if old Bones has any git to him."
"It'll make him mad."
"Who mad? Brann?"
"Yes."
"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"
There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man on the sidewalk said, confidentially:
"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack o' bones just right, he'll distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im—I know 'im."
The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great red mouth open, his ears laid back. Brann and the young doctor of the place were turning together, a little farther up the street. The blacks, responding to their driver's word, came down with flying hoofs, their great glossy breasts flecked with foam, their jaws champing.
"Come on, crow-bait!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate in the glare of his eyes.