But the sudden stop had sprung something, and Horace was out fixing it. He had pulled off his cap and got under the machine, and I saw the beaded sweat begin to rise on the crown of his bald head, like bubbles on a mill pond. This did me a world of good. I lighted a cigar, propped up and began to smoke. For half an hour he tinkered and tinkered. I smoked and gave him such bits of sarcastic encouragement as happened into my head. I reminded him that Tempus was fugiting, and that it was already quite 9:50 and we were still ten miles from nowhere; that the little mare would have been there by now, and we would still have some friends left on the pike. "Consider the lilies that ride in automobiles," I quoted, "they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that old gray mare, in all her glory, never worked as hard as you are working now." It was my time, and Dick and I enjoyed it, sensible dog that he was. After every bit of such talk he’d wink and fairly guffaw. Horace was working hard. He was groveling in the dirt to do it, too, and that suited me also. I could gauge his efforts by the sweat drops that arose on his bald spot, growing and then bursting like soap bubbles, to roll down his collar. "Plague it!" he said at last, rising, "I can’t see very well without my glasses. Say, stop your guying, now, and look under here and see if you can see what’s wrong." I got out as leisurely as a lord; all I could see was a small coil of wire, red hot. "I see it," I said, solemnly. "The thing’s appendix is red hot. Give me an axe and I’ll open it up." Dick howled with delight. I thought he’d die. Horace smiled grimly, but it was a smile that said, "I’ll even this up yet." "Put in your shells; we’ll hunt around toward that farm house, and up there I’ll ’phone to town and have Smith come out and fix it." Thus he spoke, and I agreed. In fact, there was nothing else to do. We rolled the machine aside, the dogs were let out, and we were soon quartering a field toward a farm house. "Whose place is this?" I asked, as the dogs began to hunt down the wind. "Old Bogair’s, a French Canadian. He came here three years ago from Canada; ticklish old fellow, but he knows me, and it’s all right." I felt secure, for while the game law is very strict, requiring written permission to hunt on one’s premises, intended as a guard against pot hunters, no gentleman ever objected to another hunting on his farm. We started through a cedar wood in a gladey spot and I saw Dick beginning to nose the wind and to throw up his head for quail. Then I heard my companion calling lustily for me to come. I rushed up, Dick at my heels. "What is it?" I asked. "A coon—a big coon—up in that cedar tree. Get on the other side, quick!" I ran around, and, sure enough, up among the branches, trying to hide, but showing the end of a brindled and streaked tail, was the coon.