A DAY'S DRIVE IN THESE STATES 27 



laziness, probably; who could blame him? 

 and I continued to enjoy the sights and 

 sounds of the forest. But my seatmate, 

 better experienced and more charitable, was 

 not to be misled. Little by little his anxi- 

 ety increased, till he could do nothing but 

 talk about it (so it happened that we crossed 

 the North Carolina line, and I was none the 

 wiser) ; and before long it became evident, 

 even to me, that whatever ailed the horse, 

 sickness, laziness, discouragement, or ex- 

 haustion, he must be carefully humored, or 

 we should find ourselves stranded for the 

 night on a lonesome mountain road. Slower 

 and slower we went, both men on foot, of 

 course, up all the ascents, and worse and 

 worse grew Doc's behavior. I was sorry for 

 him, and sorrier still for the driver, who was 

 thinking not only of his horse and his pas- 

 senger, but of himself and his own standing 

 with the owner of the team. He was sure it 

 was none of his fault, he kept protesting ; 

 nothing of the kind had ever happened to 

 him before. Finally, seeing him so misera- 

 bly depressed (for the time being every mis- 

 fortune is as bad as it looks), so quite at the 

 end of his wit, and almost at the end of his 



