off his horse, while Sam's
face was immovably composed into the most doleful gravity.

"Course," said Sam, "Mas'r can do as he'd ruther, go de straight road,
if Mas'r thinks best,--it's all one to us. Now, when I study 'pon it, I
think de straight road de best, _deridedly_."

"She would naturally go a lonesome way," said Haley, thinking aloud, and
not minding Sam's remark.

"Dar an't no sayin'," said Sam; "gals is pecular; they never does
nothin' ye thinks they will; mose gen'lly the contrary. Gals is nat'lly
made contrary; and so, if you thinks they've gone one road, it is sartin
you'd better go t' other, and then you'll be sure to find 'em. Now, my
private 'pinion is, Lizy took der road; so I think we'd better take de
straight one."

This profound generic view of the female sex did not seem to dispose
Haley particularly to the straight road, and he announced decidedly that
he should go the other, and asked Sam when they should come to it.

"A little piece ahead," said Sam, giving a wink to Andy with the eye
which was on Andy's side of the head; and he added, gravely, "but I've
studded on de matter, and I'm quite clar we ought not to go dat ar way.
I nebber been over it no way. It's despit lonesome, and we might lose
our way,--whar we'd come to, de Lord only knows."

"Nevertheless," said Haley, "I shall go that way."

"Now I think on 't, I think I hearn 'em tell that dat ar road was all
fenced up and down by der creek, and thar, an't it, Andy?"

Andy wasn't certain; he'd only "hearn tell" about that road, but never
been over it. In short, he was strictly noncommittal.

Haley, accustomed to strike the balance of probabilities between lies
of greater or lesser magnitude, thought that it lay in favor of the dirt
road aforesaid. The mention of the thing he thought he perceived
was involuntary on Sam's part at first, and his confused attempts to
dissuade him he set down to a desperate lying on second thoughts, as
being unwilling to implicate Liza.

When, therefore, Sam indicated the road, Haley plunged briskly into it,
followed by Sam and Andy.

Now, the road, in fact, was an old one, that had formerly been a
thoroughfare to the river, but abandoned for many years after the laying
of the new pike. It was open for about an hour's ride, and after that it
was cut across by various farms and fences. Sam knew this fact perfectly
well,--indeed, the road had been so long closed up, that Andy had never
heard of it. He