"Never mind that. Emmons will settle board bills, and get your ticket in Augusta. Good by. Let me hear a good account of you when Gary writes."
With a final nod and smile that was almost fatherly, the captain disappeared.
Emmons had already mounted. Ralph quickly did likewise, and the two, with their four footed charges, rode out of the yard through a gate that was closed behind them by a negro hostler.
At first the five mules Ralph was leading, besides the one he rode, did not travel well together. His arm was wrenched almost unbearably in the effort to keep them up to the pace Emmons was setting.
The latter, looking back, called out:
"Make your halter fast to your saddle bow. Then lay the whip on."
The boy did so, and they were presently clattering down the street at a pace that made a stray policeman wave his club warningly. Soon they were in the suburbs, and thence the open country came into view, where truck farms and fruit orchards gave way to green fields of cotton and corn.
The negroes seemed to be everywhere. At a bridge a couple of black fishermen bobbed up from behind an abutment, scaring the rear squad of mules.
The five lead ones pressed heavily upon the one Ralph was riding.
"Look out!" cried one of the darkies. "Yo'se gwine over de bank! Watch out, I say!"