ingnagian frogs.

It was another queer play of fate that the next passer was Marengo
Todd, whipping his way to the fire behind a horse that had a bit of
wire pinched over his nose to stifle his "whistling."

Marengo Todd leaped out and presented the end of a fence-rail to
Brackett first, and pulled him out.

When he stuck the end of the rail under the Cap'n's nose the Cap'n
pushed it away with mud-smeared hands.

"I don't, myself, nuss grudges in times of distress, Cap Sproul,"
shouted Todd. "You kicked me. I know that. But you was in the wrong,
and you got the wu'st of it. Proverdunce has allus settled my grudges
for me in jest that way. I forgive and pass on, but Proverdunce don't.
Take that fence-rail. It sha'n't ever be said by man that Marengo
Todd nussed a grudge."

When the Cap'n was once more on solid ground, Todd, still iterating
his forgiveness of past injuries, picked up a tin pie-plate that had
been jarred out of the van among other litter, and began to scrape
the black mud off the foreman of the Ancients in as matter-of-fact
a way as though he were currycombing a horse.

The spirit of the doughty mariner seemed broken at last. He looked
down at himself, at the mud-clogged buckets and his unspeakable
bedragglement.

"I've only got one word to say to you right here and now, Cap'n,"
went on Todd, meekly, "and it's this, that no man ever gits jest where
he wants to git, unless he has a ree-li'ble hoss. I've tried to tell
you so before, but--but, well, you didn't listen to me the way you
ought to." He continued to scrape, and the Cap'n stared mutely down
at the foot that was encased in a muddy slipper.

"Now, there's a hoss standin' there--" pursued Todd.

"What will you take for that team jest as it stands?" blurted the
mariner, desperately. The fire, the smoke of which was rolling up
above the distant tree-tops, and his duty there made him reckless.
As he looked down on Todd he hadn't the heart to demand of that meek
and injured person that he should forget and forgive sufficiently
to take him in and put him down at Ide's. It seemed like crowding
the mourners. Furthermore, Cap'n Aaron Sproul was not a man who
traded in humble apologies. His independence demanded a different
footing with Todd, and the bitter need of the moment eclipsed economy.
"Name your price!"

"A hundred and thutty, ev'rything throwed in, and I'll drive you
there a mile a minit," gasped Todd, grasping the situation.

With mud