"It was easy for him," I said, rising to the defence.
"Ho, ho," said Ump, "I wouldn't think you'd be throwin' bokays after that duckin'. I saw him. It wasn't so killin' easy."
"It couldn't be so bad," said Jud; "the horse ain't a bit winded."
"Laddiebuck," cried the hunchback, "you'll see before you get through. That current's bad."
I turned around in the saddle. "Then you're not going to put them in?" I said.
"Damn it!" said the hunchback, "we've got to put 'em in."
"Don't you think we'll get them over all right?" said I, bidding for the consolation of hope.
"God knows," answered the hunchback.
"It'll be the toughest sleddin' that we ever went up against." Then he turned his mare and rode back to the house of the ferrymen, and we followed him.
Ump stopped at the door and called to the old woman. "Granny," he said, "set us out a bite." Then he climbed down from the Bay Eagle, one leg at a time, as a spider might have done.