"I should like to see Woodford champing the bit," said I. "I'd give a leg for the sight of it," replied the hunchback, "an' they could pick the leg." I laughed at the hunchback's offer to the Eternal Powers. Of all the generation of rogues, he was least fitted to barter away his underpinning. We rode back to the shop and down the hill after the cattle, Ump drumming on the pommel with his fingers and firing a cackle of fantastic monologue. "Quiller," he said, "do you think Miss Cynthia will be glad to see the drove comin' down the road?" "Happy as a June bug," said I. "Old Granny Lanham," continued the hunchback, "used to have a song that went like this: "'God made man, an' man made money; God made bees, an' bees made honey; God made woman, an' went away to rest Him, An' along come the devil, an' showed her how to best Him.'" "Meaning what?" said I. "Meanin'," responded Ump, "that if you think you know what a woman's goin' to do, you're as badly fooled as if you burned your shirt." "Ump," I said sharply, "what do you know about women?" "Nothin' at all," said he, "nothin' at all. But I know about mares. An' when they lay back their ears, it don't always mean that they're goin' to kick you." CHAPTER XVIII BY THE LIGHT OF A LANTERN It was a hungry, bareheaded youngster that rode up at sundown to Roy's tavern. The yellow mud clinging to my clothes had dried in cakes, and as my hat was on the other side of the Valley River, my head, as described by Ump, was a "middlin' fair brush heap." Adam Roy gaped in astonishment when I called him to the door to ask about a field for the cattle. "Law! Quiller," he cried, "where in the name o' fathers have you been a-wallerin'?" "We went swimming in the Valley," I answered. "Mercy sakes!" said the tavern-keeper, "you must a mired down. You've got mud enough on you to daub a chimney, an' your head looks like a chaff-pen on a windy mornin'. What did you go swimmin' for?" "Hobson's choice," said I. "Was the ferry washed out?" he asked. "It was out," I said. "How it got out is a heifer of another drove." "An' did you swim the cattle?" The man leaned out of the door. I pointed my finger to the drove coming down the road. "There they are," said I. "Do you see any wings on them?" "Lord love me!" cried the tavern-keeper, "I'd never put cattle in the Valley when it was up, unless I wanted to see their tails a stickin' out o' the drift-wood. Why didn't you wait until they fixed the ferry? What was your hurry?" "No matter about that hurry," said I. "Just now we have another hurry that is a trifle more urgent. We want a field for the cattle, and corn and clover hay and plenty of bedding for the horses, and something hot for supper. We are all as hungry as Job's turkey." "One thing at a time, Quiller," said the man, spreading his hands. "Turn the cattle into the north boundary an' come along to the house."