We got along all right for ten or twelve miles, meeting perhaps a dozen people in wagons or on foot, and just stopping long enough to "pass the time of day." Our first adventure was with a man in a wagon and accompanied by a boy of about our age. The man spoke to us rather gruffly, asked who we were, and where we were going.
We told him our names and our fathers' names, where we lived, and the rest that the reader knows.
"I don't think you're telling the truth," said the man.
"We have told you the exact truth," I answered, "and my friend David will say the same thing."
"Of course he would do so," was the answer, "but that won't make it true. I believe you're a pair of runaway apprentices, and I'm going to arrest you!"
"We are nothing of the sort," I answered, "we have never been apprenticed to anybody, and we're not running away."
"We'll see about that," was his reply, "get into the hind part of my wagon, and come back to the village."
David and I exchanged glances momentarily, and each shook his head. David said, in a low whisper, "We won't go. It will lose us too much time."
Thereupon I spoke up and answered, "We don't want to ride in your wagon back to the village or anywhere else, and we won't do it. We will keep on our road, and if you choose to bring the sheriff to arrest us you may do so. We warn you beforehand, that we shall demand that our expenses shall be paid if you find out that we have told the truth."
"Get into the wagon, I say. Do as I tell you!"