Sam faltered, and his master interposed: "Go on--'sides what." "Well, 'taint nothin', sir." "All right. I like to hear about nothings. Who is she, Sam?" "Who's who, Mastah?" "Why, the girl you've been courting over at Wanalah? Of course I know you've been stealing a mule out of the stables and riding over there every night for a month without asking my permission. But I don't know who the girl is or whether she's worthy of you, Sam." "'Fore de Lawd, Mastah, I ain't--" "Don't forswear yourself, Sam. I know all about it. I visit my stables every night, and I've missed you and the mule. I don't mind, only, if you had asked me, I'd have let you have a better mule and a saddle. Never mind that now. Take the mare Medora, and get away from here. Bring your Mas' Boyd's horse to the Court House, and mind you, don't stop at Wanalah to sweetheart with Patty Jane--for you see after all I know all about this thing." "And Sam, tell my body servant to send me some clothes by you," added Westover. When the boy had gone, in some confusion over what seemed to him his master's supernatural knowledge of things he had carefully guarded against discovery, Farnsworth explained to his companion: "I always take pains to know what goes on on the plantation, and I never mention it except in sensational ways, calculated to impress the African mind with the conviction that as a doctor I am possessed of strange, occult powers of discovery against which it is useless to practise the ordinary arts of concealment. It's a handy way to keep things in order on a plantation, the master of which has to attend to a medical practice. Now we must be off. Here are our horses. I've assigned to your use the maddest piece of horseflesh I possess. It's a mare that broke my overseer's arm a year ago, and when harnessed to a vehicle for purposes of subjugation and discipline kicked the vehicle into kindling wood and scrap iron and then kept on kicking till there was nothing left on her but a collar. She'd have kicked that off too, I reckon, if it had been behind her shoulders. She has been a good deal tamed since then, but she still has spirit enough to satisfy any reasonable rider. You, of course, are unreasonable. What's your fancy anyhow, Boyd, for riding cataclysms and cyclones instead of serious-minded animals that know their business and do it docilely?" "Oh I don't know. I like struggle, contest, and all that. I like to match my wits against brute strength. I like--well I suppose I like a fight." As he spoke the two mounted. "There's no trace of neurasthenia in him, anyhow," thought Farnsworth. Aloud he said: "All that is very fortunate, for just now you've got all the fight ahead of you that any reasonable person of fighting temperament could desire." "Tell me all about it, Carley. I've been trying to worm the facts out of you ever since I got to Chinquapin Knob."