By and by the team and wagon clattered into view from among the trees along the river.
"My horses!" cried Sam involuntarily. Filled with a kind of panic, his eyes sought the hills.
A second glance showed him both the figures visible in the wagon-box were of men. He calmed down. Whether his principal feeling was of relief or disappointment, he could not have said. Ed was looking at him curiously.
"Not mine," said Sam, blushing. "I mean the team I used to drive."
As the horses mounted the rise, Sam called in a softened voice: "Sambo! Dinah!"
The little black pair pricked up their ears and whinnied. Sam went to meet them. The two men he dimly remembered as breed-boys around the settlement. Scarcely regarding them, he pulled the horses' ears and rubbed their noses, while they nozzled him capriciously with delicate whickerings.
"Old boy! Old girl!" whispered Sam. "You haven't forgotten me, eh? Maybe you miss me just the same as I miss you!"
"How did you come by this team?" he demanded of the driver.
As he looked up he saw that a third head and shoulders had risen above the edge of the box. He saw a face incredibly wrinkled, framed in long, straggling grey hair. The bright eyes twinkled merrily.
"Hello, Sam!"