As they rode along in silence, the echo of the words "little fool," and the tone in which he had uttered them, lingered upon the driver's ear.

He could not help thinking that he had been rather harsh with his little passenger.

Presently he said, "I don't care though,--we are coming to a level piece of ground on ahead here a little way, and then I'll see what you can make of teaming." Marco was quite pleased at this unexpected result, and after ten or fifteen minutes, they came to the level piece of road, and the driver put the reins into Marco's hand.

Marco had sometimes driven two horses, when riding out with his father in a barouche, up the Bloomingdale road in New York.

He was therefore not entirely unaccustomed to the handling of reins; and he took them from the driver's hand and imitated the manner of holding them which he had observed the driver himself to adopt, quite dexterously.
The horses, in fact, needed very little guidance.