"H'm!" grumbled Ripley, or "Rip Van Winkle," as he was familiarly known by the show people. "My eyes are all right. Don't fret. I've been twenty years with this here show, man and boy—"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Scripps. "You're seasoned, right enough. Don't leave the rig to come home without a driver, though, and money letters aboard, as you did last week. Here is a new hand. Break him in to keep his time employed."
Ripley viewed Andy with some disfavor. Evidently he regarded him as a sort of guardian.
Andy, however, silently followed him outside. Ripley soon reached a close vehicle, boarded up back of the seat and with two doors at the rear.
A big-boned mottled horse, once evidently a beauty, was between the shafts. As Andy lifted himself to the seat beside Ripley, the latter made a peculiar, purring: "Z-rr-rp, Lute!"
He did not even take up the reins. The horse, with a neigh and a frisky dance movement of the forefeet, started up.
"Right, left, slow, Lute. Turn—now go"—Ripley gave a dozen directions within the next five minutes. He was showing off for Andy's benefit. The latter was, in fact, pleased. The animal obeyed every direction with a precision and intelligence that fairly amazed the boy.
Finally getting to a clear course outside the circus tangle, Ripley took up the reins.
He set his lips and uttered two sharp whistles, ending in a kind of hiss.
Andy was very nearly jerked out of his seat He had to hold on to its side bar. For about five hundred yards the horse took a sprint that knocked off his cap and fairly took his breath away.