by. Let me hear a good account of you when Gary
writes."

With a final nod and smile that was almost fatherly, the captain
disappeared.

Emmons had already mounted. Ralph quickly did likewise, and the two,
with their four footed charges, rode out of the yard through a gate
that was closed behind them by a negro hostler.

At first the five mules Ralph was leading, besides the one he rode, did
not travel well together. His arm was wrenched almost unbearably in
the effort to keep them up to the pace Emmons was setting.

The latter, looking back, called out:

"Make your halter fast to your saddle bow. Then lay the whip on."

The boy did so, and they were presently clattering down the street at a
pace that made a stray policeman wave his club warningly. Soon they
were in the suburbs, and thence the open country came into view, where
truck farms and fruit orchards gave way to green fields of cotton and
corn.

The negroes seemed to be everywhere. At a bridge a couple of black
fishermen bobbed up from behind an abutment, scaring the rear squad of
mules.

The five lead ones pressed heavily upon the one Ralph was riding.

"Look out!" cried one of the darkies. "Yo'se gwine over de bank!
Watch out, I say!"

CHAPTER IX.

Ralph Arrives at Savannah.

The warning was too late to be effectual. It might not have done any
good, anyhow, as under the pressure of five frightened mules, the one
Ralph bestrode was pushed to the very verge of the high embankment
leading up to the bridge.

The boy saw the inevitable catastrophe that was coming. He released
his feet from the stirrups, unwound the halter from the saddle bow and
threw himself on the back of the next mule just as the one he had been
riding toppled over the embankment, down which it rolled clumsily to
the bottom.

Ralph spurred the other on vigorously towards the bridge, while the two
negroes, who were responsible for the disaster, seized the rope that
held the animals and between the three further mischief was averted.

But it was a very close shave. Had the whole bunch gone, Ralph's life
might have been sacrificed, to say nothing of damage to the mules.

Emmons now came cantering back with his charges just as the fallen mule
regained its feet with the saddle between its legs.

"What d'ye mean?" he scolded. "Hain't you learned to ride yet?"

Ralph, rather provoked and much out of breath, was silent, but the
darkies gave loud and voluble expl