"He's got a powahful sight of appetite fo' a po' man," explained the
darky fluently. "I's glad to see him go. Dat mule, sah, even eats de
pickets on de fence."

Kenny felt sincerely that he could understand.

"Just give him his haid, sah," called the negro as he climbed aboard,
"and he'll find de road outside fo' yoh."

Mule and rider disappeared with a sort of plunge. Kenny's spirits
soared. Substance and speed here enough for any man. He remembered in
the first moment of his uplift that Cuchullin, foremost champion of the
Red Branch, had had a magic steed that rose from a lake. Its name was
Leath Macha.

Very well, he would christen this amazing beast of sinews with the
compass nose, Leath Macha, and make him a gift of his head as the darky
advised. Leath Macha--Kenny later found less poetic names he liked
better--developed a sylvan taste for roving and lost himself in no
time, pursuing elusive glints of greenness. He seemed always seeking
food. It came over his rider with a sickening wave of apprehension and
disgust that the unscrupulous negro, taking advantage of his plight,
had sold him what the southern darky calls an ornery mule, a mule that
charged forward with fiery snorts and halted only when it pleased him,
kicked backward when he did stop and plunged forward immediately
afterward with a horrible air of purpose.

Kenny groaned. He was between the devil and the deep sea. The
prospect of staying lost in a world of trees filled him with hungry
foreboding. But he dreaded the open highway and pictured himself John