They might have been able to creep past in safety, but that one of the team shied at the bales of hay, and swerved about three feet from the road. In an instant, the horses were plunging in the mud, and the spring-waggon had sunk up to the hubs. Ben took the black snake, and whipped up the poor brutes, and, together with Holles, shouted, coaxed, and swore. But they had gone down so deep that they could not free themselves. They plunged and paddled and struggled hard to drag out the waggon, until at last one of them, more faint-hearted than the other, gave up trying, and began nibbling the grass. Ben and Holles jumped down, and walked very gingerly over the soft ground, which, in the neighbourhood of the horses’ hoofs, was precisely like pea-soup. They unhitched the animals, who then sprang forward and gained firm footing once more. There they stood tired and panting, their long tails looking like house-painter’s brushes steeped in rich brown colouring. “I won’t be worried again into bringing my team out so soon after a storm,” said Ben, half humorously, as he stroked both the horses. “They don’t care about a mud bath.” “It won’t hurt them,” answered Holles. “In fact it is a capital thing for the health. My maiden aunt used to go every year to Karlsbad for the mud baths, and after the tenth season she really began to feel the benefit of them. All the same, Ben, I am glad we had not to dig out the horses. That is the very devil. Now for the waggon. I have a brilliant idea.” He saw a rope in the hay cart, and at once possessed himself of it. He fastened it to the pole of their own waggon, and attached it to the horses. Then once more Ben cracked the black snake, and the horses, being now on solid ground, tugged and tugged, and at last pulled out the waggon. “You ought to thank your stars you had me with you,” said Holles, as they started on their way again. “I’m so wonderfully ingenious.” He drove into the village in grand style, much elated that he and Ben had come off so easily. A great many men were gathered together at the grocery-store, which was also the post-office, and horses and buggies of every description were crowding the road: most of the horses looked as though they had been mired, and several of them wore an air of depression born of wounded pride. Others obviously did not care whether or not their appearance was changed for the worse, and received with stolid indifference the various uncomplimentary remarks bestowed on their tails.