“Yes, I do,” I said, hotly. “He’s mine. I’ve paid for him and I want to take him over yonder and rub him under the nose of that villain that induced me to go hunting in an automobile and steered me on the premises of a confounded Dago who keeps registered cats that look exactly like coons when up a tree.” He thought I was complimenting him. “_Voila_—I t’ank you,” he said, bowing again, with his hand on his stomach. I hunted around an hour before I went to the machine. I waited to cool off. Jack found a fine covey, and I missed them right and left. I had lost my nerve and my luck. When I reached the machine, Horatius was in, blinking, and we said not a word. It was my time to freeze. Smith had run out from town and fixed it. A little wire the size of a pencil point had got an inch out of place, and it had been as dead as a log wagon on us. It was now exactly 3:30, but we decided we still had a chance to get a covey. We made the next three miles in beautiful time, meeting only one man driving a game, high-headed horse that swept by us without giving us the least notice. “If they were all bred like that one,” I said, “a man in a machine might think he had some rights on the road.” “Glad you are beginning to see the other side,” said Horatius. I shut up. “We’ll be there by four,” he said; “just the time the birds begin to feed good. Oh, we’ll get a few yet. It’s a long lane, you know. Our luck is turning.” “This _is_ fun,” I said, as we flew along the newly gravelled road parallel with the creek—“fine—give it to her.” The scenery was beautiful; the bluffs were draped in clustering red berries, and the woods old gold and crimson. The water foamed over the lime rocks, glowing iridescent in the sun, and the air was bracing as we buzzed along. _Honk! Honk!_ “Let her up!” I cried, as a touch of speed mania got into me. “Say, I see how it is,” I said, “why a man soon gets the speed mania in him. Horsemen can’t blame you, for they have got it, too.” “Oh, we’re riding,” he cried. “You have an hour yet.” We were indeed riding—along a narrow path of the road rising to a rather abrupt hill. Rising and peeping over, I saw a long procession of creeping things, their ears just shining above the hill we were both ascending. “Halt! Stop!” I cried. It was too late—everlastingly too late! We were meeting a negro funeral procession—good old Uncle Pete, as good an old-time darky as ever lived. I had known him well, a fellow of infinite jest. But I did not recognize him promptly, now—at least as I soon saw him. I hate to write what followed. I felt faint and sick.