A SURPRISE
Down the hill coasted Uncle Sam, bearing his rider furiously onward. A fence along the wayside seemed like a very entanglement of stakes and pickets. Then it was gone. A house loomed up in view, grew larger, and was gone. A cow that was grazing in a field languidly raised her head, blinked her eyes, and stood as if uncertain whether she had really seen something pass or not.
They were in the valley now and the sea was no longer discernible. On they rushed with a fine disdain for poor little Charos, whose village steeple appeared and disappeared like a flash of lightning. The road was broad and level and Uncle Sam sped along amid a cloud of dust, the bordering trees and houses flying away behind like dried leaves in a hurricane. The rider's hair was fluttering like a victorious emblem, his eyes fixed with a wild intensity.
"We'd get arrested for this in America," he muttered; "we—we should worry."
It was little Uncle Sam cared for the traffic laws of America.
Around the outskirts of Teurley they swept and into the broad highway like a pair of demons, and a muleteer, seeing discretion to be the better part of valor, drove his team well to the side—far enough, even, to escape any devilish contamination which this unearthly apparition might diffuse.
They had reached a broad highway, one of those noble roads which Napoleon had made. They could not go wrong now. They passed a luxurious chateau, then a great hotel where people haled them in French. Then they passed an army auto truck loaded with mattresses, with the bully old initials U. S. A. on its side. Two boys in khaki were on the seat.
"Is the Texas Pioneer in?" Tom yelled.
"What?" one of them called back.
"He's deaf or something," muttered Tom; "we—should worry."