"You takin' that nigger?" the trader asked.

"Yes. Lead out your best offer now. I want another mule," Esmond
Clarenden replied.

But the horse-merchant proved to be harder to deal with than the crowd
had been. The foolish risk of losing so valuable a piece of property as
Daniel Boone ought to be in the slave-market taxed his powers of
understanding, profanity, and abuse.

"Cussin' solid, an' in streaks," Aunty Boone chuckled, softly, as she
listened to him unmoved.

Equally unmoved was Esmond Clarenden. But his genial smile and
diplomatic power of keeping still did not prevent him from being as set
as the everlasting hills in his own purpose.

"This here critter is all I'll sell you," the trader declared at last,
pulling a big white-eyed dun animal out of the group. "An' nobody's
goin' to drive her easy."

"I'll take it," Uncle Esmond said, promptly, and the vicious-looking
beast was brought to where Aunty Boone stood beside the wagon-tongue.

It was a clear case of hate at first sight, for the mule began to plunge
and squeal the instant it saw her. The woman hesitated not a minute, but
lifting her big ham-like foot, she gave it one broadside kick that it
must have mistaken for a thunderbolt, and in that low purr of hers, that
might frighten a jungle tiger, she laid down the law of the journey.