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It will be always a confused and mysterious riddle to his childish recollection, what strange gulf he fell into that day, and how the kitchen sink and those great, grabbing arms came to be at the end of it. "How happened Dukie to tumble down-stairs?" asked Mrs. Scherman, in the way mothers do, when she had released him from Mrs.
"We must 'a come at last to Stormy Gap: it might be worse, and it might be better. Rocks o' both sides, and no way round. No choice but to get through it, or to spend the night inside of it. You and I are a pretty good weight, old Dukie. We'll even try a charge for it, afore we knock under. We can't have much more smother than we've gotten already.
Departing upon this errand, Penrod found Duke enjoying the declining rays of the sun in the front yard. "Hyuh, Duke!" called his master, in an indulgent tone. "Come on, good ole Dukie! Come along!" Duke rose conscientiously and followed him. "I got him, men!" Penrod called from the stairway. "I got our good ole calf all ready to be tied up. Here he is!"
For a moment he stopped to consider the forlorn hope of his last resolution. "About me, there is no such great matter," he thought; "but if I was to kill Dukie, who would ever hear the last of it? And what a good horse he have been, to be sure! But if I was to leave him so, the crows would only have him. We be both in one boat; we must try of it."
"What can old horse know, without the Lord hath told 'un? And likely he hath never asked, no more than I did. We mought 'a come twelve moiles, or we mought 'a come no more than six. What ever is there left in the world to judge by? The hills, or the hollows, or the boskies, all is one, so far as the power of a man's eyes goes. Howsomever, drive on, old Dukie."
Old Dukie drove on with all his might and main, and the stout spirit which engenders strength, till he came to a white wall reared before him, twice as high as his snow-capped head, and swirling like a billow of the sea with drift. Here he stopped short, for he had his own rein, and turned his clouted neck, and asked his master what to make of it.
After several long pants he looked around, and found that a thicket of stub oak jutting from the crag of the gap had made a small alcove with billows of snow piled over it. Then the brave spirit of the man came forth. "There is room for Dukie as well as me," he gasped; "with God's help, I will fetch him in." Weary as he was, he cast himself back into the wall of snow, and listened.
I know what we'll do NOW! I just thought of it, and it's goin' to be sumpthing I bet there aren't any other boys in this town could do, because where would they get any good ole panther like we got, and Herman and Verman? And they'd haf to have a dog, too and we got our good ole Dukie, I guess. I bet we have the greatest ole time this afternoon we ever had in our lives!"
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