vast materialistic content, longed to
linger and cursed the village posse he fancied at his heels. The first
romance of his flight from justice was waning rapidly. With a groan he
plunged on, horribly full of aches and hunger. Always now he would
understand the Gaelic legend of Far Goila, the gaunt Man of Hunger who
goes touring up and down the land in times of famine bringing luck to
those who feed him. Even his taste for cheese was returning. The
holocaust of the morning filled him with bitter regret. As for his
feet, they felt shapeless and huge and fungus-like and full of burning
needles. Oh, for the sandals of power of Fergus Mac Roigh!

At noon in utter desperation he bought a mule.

The mule brayed temptation at him from the fence of a forest shanty. A
negress stood in the doorway. Kenny, in no mood for haggling,
recklessly offered what he thought the mule was worth. It looked
incredibly sturdy. His voice evoked a ragged husband who came up out
of a cellar doorway eating a dwarfed banana. The sight of the banana
made Kenny dizzy with emotion.

He demanded one at any price and bought six, ate them one after the
other without the pretense of a halt and moodily shied the last skin at
a sparrow, realizing then with a shock that the negro had already
untied the mule from the picket fence. The precipitancy of it all made
him slightly uncomfortable. Either the negro was too lazy to bargain
or the offer was out of all proportion to the mule's repute. Kenny
asked.

"He's got a powahful sight of appetite fo' a po' man," explained the
darky fluently. "I's glad to see him go. Dat mule, sah, even eats de
pickets on de fence."

Kenny felt sincerely that he could understand.

"Just give him his haid, sah," called the negro as he climbed aboard,
"and he'll find de road outside fo' yoh."

Mule and rider disappeared with a sort of plunge. Kenny's spirits
soared. Substance and speed here enough for any man. He remembered in
the first moment of his uplift that Cuchullin, foremost champion of the
Red Branch, had had a magic steed that rose from a lake. Its name was
Leath Macha.

Very well, he would christen this amazing beast of sinews with the
compass nose, Leath Macha, and make him a gift of his head as the darky
advised. Leath Macha--Kenny later found less poetic names he liked
better--developed a sylvan taste for roving and lost himself in no
time, pursuing elusive glints of greenness. He seemed