that
tavern is no place to hire you to with your appetite for drink, as I
shall tell your master."

At this moment Jimmy Phoebus observed the lean little mulatto boy who
had left the hotel come up out of the swampy place in the road and
exchange a look of intelligence with Dave as he rode past on the pony.

"Boy," cried Samson, "is dat de road to Laurel?"

The boy made no answer, but, looking back once, timidly, ground his
heels into the pony's flank and darted into the brush towards Salisbury.

"Samson," spoke Dave, "you see dat ole woman in de cart yonder?"--he
pointed to a figure ascending the rise in the ground beyond the
brook--"I know her, an' she's gwyn right to Laurel. She lives dar. It's
ten miles from dis yer turn-off, an' she knows all dese yer
woods-roads."

"Good-bye, den, an' may you find Aunt Hominy an' de little chillen,
Jimmy, an' bring dem all home to Prencess Anne from dat ar Joe Johnson!"
cried Samson, and trotted his mule through the swamp and away. Jimmy
Phoebus saw him overtake the old woman in the cart and begin to speak
with her as the scrubby woods swallowed them in.

"What's dat he said about Joe Johnson?" observed Dave, after a bad
spell of coughing, as they cleared the old church and entered the sandy
pine-woods.

Mrs. Custis spoke up more promptly than Jimmy Phoebus desired, and
told the negro about the escape of Hominy and the children, and the hope
of Mr. Phoebus to head the party off as they ascended the Nanticoke
towards the Delaware state-line.

"You don't want to git among Joe Johnson's men, boss?" said the red-eyed
negro; "dey bosses all dis country heah, on boff sides o' de state-line.
All dat ain't in wid dem is afraid o' dem."

"How fur is it from this road to Delaware, Dave?" asked Phoebus.

"We're right off de corner-stone o' Delawaw state dis very minute. It's
hardly a mile from whar we air. De corner's squar as de stone dat sots
on it, an' is cut wid a pictur o' de king's crown."

"Mason and Dixon's line they call it," interpreted Mrs. Custis.

"Do you know Joe Johnson, Dave?"

"Yes, Marster Phoebus, you bet I does. He's at Salisbury, he's at
Vienna, he's up yer to Crotcher's Ferry, he's all ober de country, but
he don't go to Delawaw any more in de daylight. He was whipped dar, an'
banished from de state on pain o' de gallows. But he lives jess on dis
side o' de Delawaw line, so dey can't git him in Delawaw. He calls his
place Johnson's Cross-roads: ole Patty