The morning opened auspiciously with a raking from Grubbs, who, finding that the Governor had decamped, most ungenerously held Archie responsible for his departure.
"I swear every year," he declared, "I'll never hire another tramp and hereafter I'll let the crops rot before I'll have one on the place."
Archie replied with heat that he knew nothing about the Governor or the reason for his precipitate passing. As the scolding the foreman had given him the day before still rankled, he protested his ignorance of the Governor and all his ways with a vigor strengthened much to his own edification by oaths he had never employed before. The foreman, taken aback by his onslaught, mumbled and then asked humbly as though ashamed of his lack of confidence in his employee: "Well, you two landed here together and I thought you might be gettin' ready to play the same trick. Look here, d'ye know anything about horses?"
"Well, I've ridden some," Archie answered guardedly, fearing the imposition of some disagreeable task as a punishment for his violent language.
"Ridden; where th' hell have you rode?"
Archie's knowledge of horses had been gained by cautious riding in park bridle paths with a groom, but to confess this would be only to increase the wrath and arouse the suspicions of the farmer.
"Oh, I've always been around horses," said Archie. "I guess I can handle 'em all right."
The foreman meditated, gave a hitch to his trousers, inspected Archie from head to foot and spat.
"Humph! I gotta find somebody t' watch the old man's granddaughter ride 'er pony, and I guess I'll give you the job if y' got sense enough to set on a horse and keep th' kid from breakin' 'er neck. What y' think o' that! I gotta waste a horse right now when I could use a dozen more, so a grown man can play with a kid! The old man's skipped this morning without sayin' whether he'd ever be back again!"
"Mr. Congdon has left?" asked Archie, with all the innocence he could muster.