Old ’Squire Jones on his roan Hal pacer. The horse got half-way by before he decided that the goggle eyes on the roadside had him. Well—no goggle eyes had ever caught any of his tribe—not yet! In bucking to wheel, he tapped the old ’squire in the mouth with his poll. The old man had been raised a Presbyterian, with Baptist propensities, and he made the ozone sulphuric. He brought his horse back to the scratch, spurring and swearing. It was all right this time, till the old horse looked into the back of the machine. True to the fool in his pedigree, he knew what the machine was, because he had never seen one before; but the dogs—they were things he had seen all his life, and he bolted backward again, jamming the old squire’s stomach against the pommel and his back against the cantle. It was time to go, and we shot out, leaving the old horse waltzing into town on his hind legs. “I didn’t hear his last remarks,” I said, as we went along. “They seemed to be rather personal.” “Let ’em go,” said Horatius. “You wouldn’t want to put them in your scrap book.” “I don’t think the mare and buggy would have made us all these enemies,” I remarked, “and we would have been there by now. Do you know it’s eleven o’clock?” “We’ve got a fine run, now,” he apologized. “We’ll be there in thirty minutes.” “We’ll be there by night,” I snarled. “Say, we’ll just call it a ’possum hunt, eh?” This made him mad, and he did not speak till he got to the big hill. Here at the foot we stopped and sat, throbbing. Horatius fumbled with a side brake a moment, touched a pedal and looked wise. “What’s all this for?” I asked. “I’m resting for a little headway before taking that steep hill. And say, while we’re at it, you ought to know something about a machine—you might be called on to help me in an emergency.” I turned pale. Up to this time I had felt secure. Now I understood something of the feelings of that pair of mules that never saw danger until they had passed it. “Why, I thought you knew all about it,” I began. “Of course I do, but something might happen to me. You might be thrown on your own resources. Now here,” he went on, “this little lever at your foot is the sparker—it quickens things—the next one is the throttle; that means more power. This is the switch-plug here; this is the starting crank and this the brake. Now remember and watch me start.” He did, the thing starting slowly up the hill and then beginning to go in little jumps, exactly like a horse galloping. “Pull him down,” I growled; “he’s broken his gait—” for I felt every moment as if it would soon wabble and quit. But he kept galloping and I settled down and began unconsciously to wabble my body as I would in motion to a galloping horse. I couldn’t help it. I glanced at Horatius—he was doing the same, but hitching at the side crank all the time, and we were bobbing like two Muscovy ducks over a mud hole. It was uncomfortable—it was uncanny.