see how they were getting along as to attend to financial matters that
he took this trip.

It was a fine, bright day in very early spring, and old Selim trotted on
quite gayly. Before very long they overtook Miles Jackson, jogging along
on a little bay horse.

Miles was a black man, very sober and sedate who for years had carried
the mail twice a week from a station farther up the railroad to the
village. But he was not a mail-carrier now. His employer, a white man,
who had the contract for carrying the mails, had also gone into another
business which involved letter-carrying.

A few miles back from the village of Akeville, where the Loudons lived,
was a mica mine, which had recently been bought, and was now worked by a
company from the North. This mica (the semi-transparent substance that
is set into stove doors) proved to be very plentiful and valuable, and
the company had a great deal of business on their hands. It was
frequently necessary to send messages and letters to the North, and
these were always carried over to the station on the other side of
Crooked Creek, where there was a daily mail and a telegraph office. The
contract to carry these letters and messages to and from the mines had
been given to Miles's employer, and the steady negro man had been taken
off the mail-route to attend to this new business.

"Well, Miles," said Harry, as he overtook him. "How do you like riding
on this road?"

"How d' y', Mah'sr Harry? How d' y', Miss Kate?" said the colored man,
touching his hat and riding up on the side of the road to let them pass.