Levin cast one long, prying look at Johnson's tavern, wishing he might
have the gift to see through its weather-stained planking and tall blank
roof, and then he watched the road, of hard sand or piney litter, with
here and there a mud-hole or long, puddly rut in it, unravel like a
ribbon behind the wheels among the thick pines.
He also observed the skill with which the Captain threw his long cowhide
whip, a mere strip of rawhide fastened to a stick, awkward in other
hands; but Van Dorn could brush a fly from either of the short, shaggy
Delaware horses with it, and hardly look where he struck or disturb the
horse, and he could deliver a blow with it by mere sleight that made the
animal stagger and tremble with the abrupt pain.
At a little sandy rill, the only one they crossed, a long water-snake
endeavored to escape before the rapid wagon could strike it, but the
Captain rose to his feet quick and cat-like, and projected the long lash
into the roadside, and the snake writhed and bounded in the air almost
cut in two. Then, sitting again and bending so close to Hulda that his
long, downy mustache of gold touched her cheek, Van Dorn said, softly:
"_Que hermoso!_ Young wild-flower, let me take a snake out of your path
also?"
"Which one, Captain?"
"It does not matter. Name any one."
"Alas!" said Hulda, "I am of them; how can I wish harm to my stepfather
and my grand-dame? They are not what I wish, but I am commanded to honor
them.
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