For answer Nat shook the rein and the gray sprang forward; after a few bounds the chestnut was alongside once more, and the dwarfs peculiar, squealing laugh sounded in the silence.
“That’s what I thought you’d do,” declared he. “I can always tell what people will do by their faces.”
“Well,” replied Nat, good humoredly, “if you can see my face in this light, I must say that Porcupines have remarkably sharp eyes.”
“I can’t see it now,” said the dwarf, composedly. “But I could the other day when you were breaking the colt for Farmer Campbell in the back lot. There’d been a dozen tried to ride that young beast before you came to Germantown, and it threw them all. I heard tell that it almost killed Peter Corbin.”
“It was somewhat self-willed,” said Nat, recalling the desperate battle he’d had with the creature before it was subdued. “But you can expect that of colts, as a rule.”
“Yes, but they’re not all as wicked as that one,” and the Porcupine’s voice had a tone of great positiveness. “I’ve seen lots of them broken, but that colt fought harder than all of them put together. But you didn’t ask any one to help you when it threw itself down and tried to roll on you, or when it tried to crush your leg against the fence. You just stuck to it and won. I knowed then, by your face, that you’d do it; and I know now, even when I can’t see it.”
“You have confidence, at any rate,” laughed Nat. “And so,” rather grimly, “I’ll try and live up to your judgment of me.”
Some distance to the southwest they came to Gray’s Road, and dashed along toward the river.
As it drew on past midnight, it grew darker, the sheen disappeared from the sky, a fact which told them that the clouds were growing thicker and that heavy rain might soon be expected. The Porcupine sniffed as they sped along.
“I can smell it,” said he confidently. “It’s going to come from the direction in which we are going.”