long the wagon tongue, which was slightly out of
the water, he again reached into the water and fumbled with the harness.
Then he stepped back, slapped the blacks and urged them with his voice,
and they floundered out of the water and gained the bank, where they
stood shaking the water from their glistening bodies.

He mounted his pony again and rode to the rear of the buckboard. Taking
the braided hair rope that hung from the pommel of his saddle he made a
hitch around the center of the rear axle. Then he wheeled his pony until
it faced away from the buckboard, rode the length of the rope carefully,
halted when it was taut, and then slowly, with his end of the rope
fastened securely to the saddle horn, pulled the buckboard to a level on
the river bottom.

Returning to the rear of the buckboard he unfastened the rope, coiled it,
and rode to the bank, catching the blacks and leading them up the slope
beyond where the girl, her aunt and uncle stood. He gently asked Uncle
Jepson to hold the blacks, for fear they might stray, and then with a
smile at the girl and Aunt Martha, he returned to the buckboard. There he
uncoiled his rope again and attached one end of it to the tongue of the
wagon, again, as before, riding away until the rope grew taut. Then, with
a word to the pony, the wagon was drawn through the water to the edge of
the sea of mud.

This mud looked treacherous, but it was the only way out; and so, after a
pause for rest, he urged the pony on again. The buckboard traveled its
length--then lurched into a rut and refused to move another foot, in
spite of the straining of the pony and its rider's urgings.

The rider paused, turned in the saddle and scratched his head in
perplexity.

"I reckon we've run ag'in a snag, Patches," he said. He scrutinized the
slopes. "I expect we'll have to try one of them, after all," he decided.

"You were foolish to try to draw the wagon out with that thing, in the
first place," loudly criticized Masten. "If you had hitched the horses to
the wagon after you had pulled it out of the hole, why--"

The rider looked at the fault-finder, his eyes narrowed.

"Why, if it ain't Willard!" he said, amazed. "Standin' there, workin' his
little old jaw ag'in! An' a-mournin' because I ain't goin' to get my feet
wet! Well, shucks. I reckon there ain't nothin' to do now but to get the
blacks an' hitch 'em onto the wagon. There's a heap of mud there, of
course, but I expect some mud on them ri