"Mattie, this child belongs to somebody way over in Drake Eye Springs! 'Cross the Arkansas line! I'll go hitch up. Get on your good dress, and we'll take her home. I'll bet her pa's got the Law out combing the woods with bloodhounds! And every man in them parts helpin'! We'll go by to see sister Dink while we're over that way. Make haste, Mattie, 'cause you know if it was one o' our'n lost, we'd be outta our minds." Uncle Hiram hobbled out the back door before I could get a chance to tell him that Mister Ward fell in the deep river. Miss Mattie started washing my face, and then they bundled me up into the wagon, and away we went. The first house we got to, we stopped while Uncle Hiram went inside to see about using the phone. But when he came back, he was shaking his head. "It wasn't no use, Mattie. Couldn't get nobody on the Drake Eye Springs line. I reckon they're all out searchin'." "Let's just go on, Hiram. It won't take more'n three hours." We rode and rode, up hills, down hills, around curves, across shallow streams—much longer than three hours, it seemed to me. About midmorning we came to low, red hills and pine trees and pin oaks that I'd passed before. Then we could see a fork in the road, where another road branched off. The new road looked a good bit like the way to go if you want to cross Rocky Head Bridge, but I couldn't be sure. "Baby, you know this stretch through here?" "No, sir. I just know the trees." "That's good!" There was a lot of mist everywhere. Fog, Uncle Hiram said. Miss Mattie took off her shawl and tied it around my head. "No use a-lettin' you take your death of cold, sugar!" Before we got to the corner where the two roads came together we saw a bunch of men on horseback galloping toward us. But they didn't see us, and as they came to the split in the road, they turned their horses to go the other way. We were real close to them. Still, they didn't look toward our wagon! "It's Papa! Uncle Hiram, yonder's Papa! He's that'n on Jake! In front! Papa, stop!" "Thank the Lord!" Miss Mattie squeezed me. Uncle Hiram stood up, yelling. "Hey! Hey, there! Hey!" The horses kept loping up the other road. Papa and the other men wouldn't look back. Uncle Hiram sat down real quick and handed the reins to his wife. "Mattie, make these mules move! When we get to the corner, cut over to that other road! They never seen us on account o' this thick fog risin' outta Rocky Head Bottom!" Uncle Hiram grabbed out his pocket knife. I couldn't imagine what he was fixing to do. He slit his britches leg, clear up above his knee! Then he snatched off his wooden leg and tied his pocket handkerchief to it! Next, he caught hold of his wife's shoulder, jumped up on the wagon seat, and started waving his peg leg in the air! "Hey! Hey, there! We've got her, y'all! She's all right! She's all right!"