hat Garda had put on her stockings and
slippers again, wet as they were. She was trying to walk; but the soft
sand of the track clung to each soaked shoe so that she lifted, as she
said, a mountain every time she took a step. In spite of this, "I'm
going on," she announced.

"You must, now that you have put on those wet things again; it's the
only way to keep from taking cold."

So they started, Garda leaning on his arm, while he held the bridle with
his other hand. "I might ride, and carry you behind me," he suggested.
"Like Lochinvar."

"Who's Lochinvar? See; there's somebody!"

He looked towards the point she indicated, and saw the figure of a man
going in another direction, and at a good distance from them. He jumped
on his horse again, and rode across to speak to him. The man proved to
be a tall young negro of eighteen or nineteen; he was ready to do
anything that Winthrop should desire, but he had also the disappointing
tidings to communicate that they were even farther from East Angels and
Gracias than they had supposed; they were still ten miles out.

"Why, it's Bartolo," said Garda, as they came back together. She had
seated herself, and was looking at her clogged feet gravely.

"Yessum," said Bartolo, removing his fragmentary straw hat.

"He's Telano's cousin," pursued Garda, inspecting the wrinkled kid at
the heel of the left slipper. "Do you know, they are beginning to
shrink; and they hurt me."

Winthrop stood still, deliberating. There was no house or cabin of any
kind within a number of miles, Bartolo said; if he should send the boy
in to Gracias on foot for a carriage, and keep on advancing with Garda
in the same direction at their present slow rate, they should not
probably reach East Angels until midnight; to go in himself on
horseback, and leave Garda with only Bartolo as protector--no, he could
not do that. This last would have been the southern way, and Garda
herself suggested it. "Ride in to Gracias as fast as you can, and come
back with a carriage, or something, for me; I shall not be afraid if
Bartolo can stay."

Bartolo showed his white teeth. "I ken stay, sho," he said. He was
blacker and jollier than his cousin Telano, he had not the dignified
manners of a Governor of Vermont; he was attired in a light costume of
blue cotton shirt and butternut trousers, his sleeves rolled up, his
feet bare.

Winthrop still deliberated. "Perhaps it would be better," he said at
last, "if Bartolo sh