Page:Tomlinson--The rider of the black horse.djvu/32

16 "The good wife may think it is," laughed Robert. "Does she know she has two more to feed to-night, Dirck?"

Acting at once upon Robert's suggestion, the three men immediately turned back toward the house, Robert himself hastening in advance of them to the barn, where he fed his black horse,—a task which on his journeys he never intrusted to another. When he, too, approached the house he perceived Dirck Rykman's little girl Mina standing in the doorway, and at once lifting her to his shoulder he entered the room with the child holding fast to his hair while he danced about in pretended pain.

"Oh, Mina," he cried, "you 're worse than a Tory! Let me go, and I 'll see if I can't find something in my pocket. Don't you remember that I promised to bring you something when I came again?" In spite of his apparent carelessness, Robert had glanced keenly at the visitor when he had spoken of the "Tory," but the man apparently was unmoved by the reference and was laughing as heartily as the others when Mina was swung to the floor.

It was some time before Robert discovered the little packages in his pocket and with a