he river bank. The ferrymen, with the characteristic
hospitality of the Hills, requested us to dismount and share the evening
meal, but we declined, urging the lateness of the hour.

Through the open door I could see the unfinished supper, the sweet
corn-pone cut like a great cheese, the striped bacon, and the blue stone
milk pitcher with its broken ears.

CHAPTER XII

THE USES OF THE MOON

When I turned about in the saddle I found that El Mahdi had passed both
of my companions who were stock still in the road a half-dozen paces
behind me. I pulled him up and called to them, "What mare's nest have
you found now?"

They replied that some horse had lately passed in a gallop. One could
tell by the long jumping and the deep, ploughing hoof-prints. "Come on,"
said I, "Woodford's devils haven't crossed. What do we care?"

"But it's mighty big jumpin'," answered the hunchback.

"Maybe," I responded laughing, "the cow that jumped over the moon took a
running start there."

"If she did," said Ump, "I'll just find out if any of the Hortons saw
her goin'." Then he shouted, "Hey, Danel, who crossed ahead of us?"

The long bulk of the ferryman loomed in the door. "It was Twiggs," he
answered.

I heard Jud cursing under his breath. Twiggs was the head groom of
Cynthia Carper, and when he ran a horse like that the devil was to pay.
I gripped the reins of El Mahdi's bridle until he began to rear.

"He must have been in a hurry," said Ump.

"'Pears like it," responded the boatman, turning back into his house.
"He lit out pretty brisk."

Ump shook the reins of his bridle and went by me in a gallop. The
Cardinal passed at my knee, and I followed, bending over to keep the
flying sand out of my eyes.

The moon was rising, a red wheel behind the shifting fog. And under its
soft light the world was a ghost land. We rode like phantoms, the
horses' feet striking noiselessly in the deep sand, except where we
threw the dead sycamore leaves. My body swung with the motions of the
horse, and Ump and Jud might have been a part of the thing that galloped
under their saddles.

The art of riding a horse cannot be learned in half a dozen lessons in
the academy on the avenue. It does not lie in the crook of the knee, or
the angle of the spine. It does not lie in the make of the saddle or the
multiplicity of snaffle reins, nor does it lie in the thirty-nine
articles of my lady's riding-master. But it is embraced in the grasp of