"It's nothing," he said, coming up. "Maybe a dog."

"It couldn't have been a dog. Let's go to the house—it makes me creepy!"

They turned, crossing the little patches of moonlight filtered through the trees upon the violet sprinkled ground. It was a wonderfully seductive spot on a night like this! The mellow tinkle of the piano, arising from Ann's nimble touch, floated out to them;—they might have been walking in an enchanted fairy-land but for the turmoil about his heart and the unrest in her own. Impulsively she faced him:

"What do you think that could have been?"

He was taken unawares, and had of course no suspicion of her cause for nervousness.

"Brent," she said again, "I must know who was there!"

He stood humbly before her with his head bowed. When he spoke his voice was absolutely sincere.

"I can't tell you, Jane."

This magnified her fears, for she thought he was trying mercifully to spare her.

"You must tell me," she urged, betraying her terror by grasping his arm. In his own preoccupation he did not notice this. "You must tell me," she was pleading. "Oh, Brent, if we are ever to be friends, here, tell me! There's a vital reason why I must know at once!"

"But, Jane, I can't," he earnestly replied to her. "It was someone to see me!"

"You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see I'm desperate?—that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?"

"Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!"

"Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest, half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I—you must forgive me! I thought it was someone—I thought it might be someone who touched me very closely, Brent!"

He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of Potter?

"It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I shouldn't have stayed."

"But I wasn't," she quickly retorted.

"Certainly," he drily agreed with her. "Very stupid of me to suggest it."

She stepped around in front of him, saying frankly:

"I give you my word of honor that I did not dream anyone would come there, nor is there a man—"

"This isn't necessary," he smiled. "I quite agree with you; and it was nothing that could have touched you at all closely."

She flushed, then turned and started slowly on, saying in a tremulous whisper:

"Very well, you needn't believe me." But just before reaching the house she again turned and faced him. "It hurts, Brent," she faltered, "to know you are thinking unkind things of me! Your own worldliness makes you utterly unsparing!"

"I would rather not have you persist in this," he said gently. "It seems to be one of those cases where you can't tell the truth, so why should you go to the other extreme unnecessarily? I'm not asking you 'what is the matter?' or if you found your cigarettes! Please dismiss it! If you want Dale to meet you in that charmed circle, I'm sure it's a harmless pastime."

She wheeled and left him, quickly running up the steps and into the house; but an echo of the pleading in her voice remained, and now gently pushed aside his ill humor which, in turn, was succeeded by a feeling of joyous relief;—because, hidden in the rhododendron thicket, a girl had whispered for him to have no fear—that Tom Hewlet would not threaten his peace again. In his surprise he had caught her arm and asked why she had come, but she drew back, whispering: "That blind girl! And, Brent, take this!" What had she meant again by the blind girl? And why had she thrust into his hand the little garnet pendant he had given her?

For another minute he pondered over the strange complexity of girls, then sighed and smiled, and by a side door reached his room.



CHAPTER XIV

A MEETING OF RASCALS

Sometime after dusk the following Saturday, Tusk Potter walked cautiously toward the home of Tom Hewlet. There was no moon, but a starry glow illumined the pike and he kept well beneath the overhanging trees; for Tusk had learned, through a dim sort of reasoning, that when he walked in life's comfortable shadows he usually walked away from trouble. He now reached the broken gate and for awhile stood regarding the house, listening to see what manner of sounds came from within. Being satisfied, he called:

"Hey, Tom!"

The door opened, and Mrs. Hewlet's whining voice answered:

"What d'you want?"

"Is Tom home?" he asked, in a half whisper.

"What if he is?" she demanded.

"Nuthin'," Tusk answered, shifting his weight and leaning against the fence.

"Oh, is that you, Tusk?" she exclaimed more hospitably. "I've tuck so much quinine a body can't hear their ears! Come in an' set!"

"Naw, I reckon not," he evasively replied. "Tell him to come on out!"

The door closed and, after a wait of several minutes, Tom glided around the corner of the house. He preferred this to coming the direct way. There were many things in common between Tusk and Tom.

"Hullo, Tusk," he said.

"Hullo, Tom."

They stood for awhile in awkward silence. Finally Tusk got out his knife and began to whittle on the gate. Tom watched this, then reached into his own pocket and produced a twist of long-green tobacco from which he gnawed off a chew.

"Got any licker 'bout you?" he asked.

"A mite," Tusk answered, and by mutual consent they moved farther down the road.

After having each tipped the bottle, Tusk announced:

"I'm buhned out!"

"You are?" Tom's voice held a note of alarm. "When?"

"A week ago today."

"How'd it happen?"

"You know that feller over to Cunnel's?"

"Reckon I do! Was it him?"

Tusk nodded. Tom remained deep in thought, wondering how he might proceed without Nancy's knowledge.

"He'll pay for it, all right," he said, at last. "He's been owin' me a little sum for a spell, an' we'll ask him to come across for two!"

"Aw, hell," Tusk turned with an air of disgust, "that ain't him. This here'n ain't got no money what I'm talkin' 'bout. I don't mean the railroad feller!"

"That's so; I did hear tell as how another feller was over there!"

"Well, I'd sort of reckon," Tusk growled. "An' what's moh, he's a Dawson! There ain't no love lost 'tween me an' you an' the Dawsons, Tom!"

"Shucks, Tusk, that ole thing's been fixed up way back at home," Hewlet evasively replied.

"It ain't fixed up when he comes down heah an' buhns me out, I reckon!"

"Naw, I reckon not," the other had to admit. "What you goin' to do?"

"What you reckon I'm goin' to do?" Tusk growled.

"Look-ee-heah," Tom exclaimed, having a sudden inspiration. "You help me on somethin' fu'st, an' then we'll have money to git moh guns, if yoh're a mind to start somethin'!"

"How you mean?" Tusk cautiously asked.

"The railroad feller owes me a hund'ed dollars—I wouldn't be s'prised if it was moh, but a hund'ed'll do to start on. Now don't ask no questions! It don't consarn nobody but him an' me. You git it for me, an' I'll help you with that Dawson bird. You know the McElroy feller, don't you?"

"I've saw him hangin' 'round; but I can't go over there," Tusk grumbled. "Didn't I jest tell you Dawson buhned me out? Why don't you go?"

"Tusk, a gentl'man don't like to be askin' another gentl'man to pay him back a little friendly loan. You don't know that, 'cause you ain't got real good sense, Tusk, but it's so. 'Sides that, some business dealin's has to go through a third party. That's how he done when he made Dawson buhn you out, didn't he?"

"When he what?" Tusk glared.

"Why, durn yoh poh haid, don't you know he wants yoh land for the railroad? Ain't he said time an' time agin he's goin' to have it; an' ain't you said you wouldn't sell? Well, then how's he goin' to git it, you tell me that?"

As though a veil had been drawn from Tusk's face he saw it all in an instant, and the next few minutes he spent in a flow of lurid oaths. Tom watched him, a slow smile flickering about the corners of his mouth. Finally he said:

"'Tain't no use to cuss; that won't build yoh cabin. Jest go like you don't know nuthin' 'bout it, an' say you've come for that hund'ed for me. An' if he says he ain't goin' to send it, jest say all right, that you'll go right on over to Arden an' ax the Cunnel an' his folks if they don't think it's fair an' squar. Jest say that! An' tell him, in case he ain't got it on him, to put it—let's see," Tom thought a moment; "tell him to put it on the schoolhouse steps tomorrer night at nine. See? If you do that, Tusk, an' fetch the coin, I'll give you five dollars an' a new rifle; an' help you git squar', too."

"Where'll I find this heah railroad feller?" Tusk was growing excited.

"He's at the Cunnel's; I done told you that!"

"An' I done told you I dassant go there!"

"Then ketch him out somewhere."

Tusk thought a moment, and hopefully exclaimed:

"I kin ketch 'im at the schoolhouse when he leaves the money!"

Tom looked at his friend in pitying disgust.

"You blamed fool, how's he comin' to the schoolhouse less'n you tell 'im!"

The simple-minded giant was greatly perplexed at this. He drew out his bottle and took another drink, then mechanically passed it to Tom.

"Well," this schemer said, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth, "if you want the gun, you'll have to make it. Belly-achin' around this a-way won't bring you nothin'. Let me know tomorrer night what you kin do, 'cause there's plenty others'll jump at the chance." With that he turned and went back to the house, while Tusk, dazed and thinking hard, walked slowly and slouchily down the pike.

Chance succeeded where the ingenuity of Tusk might have failed. He reached a dip in the road where a small stream crossed, and stopped to drink. On his hands and knees, and with the water dripping from his mouth and chin, he suddenly raised his head to listen, then scurried into the bushes to watch, as he recognized the sound of a galloping horse.

Brent, coming from town, felt his mount shy and saw Potter looking out at him. He did not know, of course, the part Tusk had played in the schoolhouse drama, or of the fire, or, indeed, anything about him except that he owned a piece of land which Dulany, Buckville's legal hope, was trying to buy for the railroad, and that someone else had said his strength was as great as his intellect was lacking. Brent reined up.

"Hello, Potter! What are you doing in there?"

"Hello yohse'f," Tusk emerged. "Hold up a minute!"

"Well?" Brent asked.

There was a pause, and Brent asked again: "Well?"

"Tom says as how you kin git that hund'ed for buhnin' down my cabin!"

"I'll get a monkey-wrench, my friend; you rattle," Brent chuckled. "But you get out of my way! I'm going!"

Tusk regarded him in sullen silence. His face was black with passion and Brent saw the necessity of more affable tactics.

"What's on your mind?" he asked. "Tell me so I can understand!"

"Nothin' ain't on my mind," Potter answered, with more truth than he realized. "Tom says you owe me a hund'ed dollars for buhnin' down my cabin; an' he says to leave that an' the hund'ed you owes him on the schoolhouse steps tomorrer night; an' if you don't hand 'em over now I'm to put it up to the Cunnel!"

It was disconnected, but Brent understood the last part well enough. Also, it had flashed across his mind that if Tusk were really burned out, Tom had done it and concocted a plausible tale in order to gain this fellow as an ally. So he sat for a minute trying to grasp the dangling threads of this surprising situation.

"Tusk," he said, "I didn't know you were burned out, and, of course, I didn't do it; but I will buy your land if you'll come in town Monday and sign—that is, if Dulany finds the title clear. He's getting some other pieces for me, and can put yours in. How much do you own?"

"Acre," Tusk answered. "Th' ain't no trick 'bout this?"

"Certainly not. But land up there where you are isn't worth a hundred dollars an acre! What are you trying to put over on us, Tusk?"

"Don't make no difference," he growled. "I had a cabin, an' a bed, an blanket; an' stove, too, sech as 'twas!"

"All right," Brent laughed. "I'll give you the hunner if you're at Dulany's office Monday." A hundred was the exact maximum price he and Dulany had decided on offering Potter for that little strip.

"How 'bout Tom's?"

"Tom's?" Brent looked down at him. "Oh, you just tell Tom to go to hell. That's the place for him."

"Will I tell the Cunnel's folks to go there, too?" he asked, with unintentional sagacity.

Brent hesitated; then, leaning over the saddle, put an impressive question.

"Tusk, do you want to go to hell?"

"Shucks," he spat contemptuously, "hell ain't got nothin' on a feller like me!"

"Then do you want to go to the penitentiary?"

"Fer Gawd sake," he sprang back, "what you mean?"

"Just this: You tell Tom that this blackmail has got to stop! Understand the word?—Blackmail! Let it soak in well, Tusk:—Blackmail! It's a penitentiary offense, and I'll have him up before the next Circuit Court, sure! Or better still," he declared, growing more and more angry, "I'll ride back and tell him myself!"

"Naw you don't," Tusk's hand went quickly to the bridle rein. "You don't give me the slip that a-way!"

"I'm not trying to give you the slip, you poor fool! You come in town day after tomorrow and get your money. That's all you want!"

"An' that's all you want, too, I reckon. But I ain't goin' nigh no town arter this talk 'bout penitentries. Jest come 'crost with that hund'ed now!"

"I won't do anything to you in town, simpleton!" Brent raged at him.

"That can be settled best by stayin' right heah, I reckon. Hand out the money!"

"I haven't it with me, Tusk. Do what I say and you won't be hurt!"

"That's all right 'bout bein' hurt," the fellow growled. "If you ain't got that money with you, I'm goin' to take its wu'th outen yoh hide. You got yoh hide, ain't you?"

For the first time Brent realized he was about to have trouble. The man's size impressed him with no particular awe. He did not think of this. He was aroused now and becoming furious, and as willing for a fight as one well could be. He felt that he had been reasonable enough, even while the man's words were goading him; but, irrespective of this, an act which invariably fires a horseman's anger had been committed—a restraining hand had been put with violence on his bridle rein.

"Wait till I tie this beast," he said, "and you can peel off all the hide you're able!"

Tusk clicked his tongue and chuckled in fiendish delight as he watched Brent dismount. Dollars were nothing to him now. He was about to thrash the "railroad feller"—to kill him, maybe—and the world seemed transformed into a whirlwind of happiness.

Brent, coming slowly back, considered that in his recent college days his right punch had been a potent factor. In the gym it had come to be an unanswerable argument, and outside of the gym on one or two occasions—perhaps others might have been recalled—it was respectfully, even though dreamily, remembered.

But now, as he stood on the ground, the abnormally long arms of the antagonist before him precluded any reasonable chance of putting this narcotic into effect—at least, where it had heretofore proved its value. The point of the jaw had been his favorite spot, but the point of this fellow's jaw would be as difficult to reach as Mars. However, he approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering: "Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an idiot as this boob who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there was no trace of anger.

Tusk, watching him approach, raised his hand and blinked at a stone he had slyly picked up. But when he, too, saw his opponent on foot he scorned the need of a weapon, even so primitive. Quite deliberately then he rolled his tattered sleeves up on those powerful, freckled, hairy arms; and grinned, showing the hideous yellow teeth.



CHAPTER XV

TRYING TO PLAY FAIR

"Put up your paddles now, Mr. Potter," Brent said, edging to the left. His arms were working like slowly moving piston-rods of an engine, that is capable of great speed. He was on his toes, and his sinuous movements seemed to speak of highly tempered springs and oil. He was indeed a different Brent from any which the countryside had heretofore seen. "Come ahead, old mutton-top," he laughed. "I'm going to fill your eye!"

To Tusk's imagination this shy fighter who kept himself at safe distances now became suddenly elongated, and then as suddenly grew normal. In the meanwhile, however,—in that infinitesmal part of a second during which the transformation occurred—a fist as hard as rocks smashed into his mouth. It was the sting of the blow, more than its actual force, which made the big fellow wild with rage; and as this increased in fury Brent kept up a rapid conversation generously punctuated with cool, insulting epithets. It was unbearable to the simple-minded Tusk who struck with a savageness that would have felled an ox. He charged his foe but never found him, he cursed and drooled and charged again, until at last Brent said in a tone of great solicitude:

"Well, old throw-back, I reckon I'll have to uncouple you now, and let in the twilight! Hate to do it—Ugh!" The right swing went smashing out—not to the jaw, but at just the proper instant to the pit of Tusk's stomach. In another fraction of a second Brent was five feet away, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and watching the big fellow crumple up.

For he was clutching, tearing open his shirt and swaying. His eyes stared wildly, his face was drawn and his mouth was open to its fullest capacity in a struggle for breath. Then he went down, all of a heap; tried to regain his feet, but failed, and crawled about on his hands and knees in the dust, still fighting for that first gasp of air which seemed tauntingly to stand between him and eternity. When it came, he rolled over on his back and lay there panting.

"Get up," Brent scowled. "We've got to finish this scrap, and I'm in a hurry!"

Tusk blinked at him in sheer perplexity. "What's yoh idee of finish?" he asked.

"I'll show you in a minute. Get up!"

"That don't sound like good sense to me," Tusk whined. "Say, how'd you do that, anyhow? I've knocked a lot with fellers, but—"

There was a spirit of forgiveness in the voice, a whisper of reconciliation, but Brent wanted his victory to be absolute. He appeared to go into a towering rage, screwing his face into a distorted horror, stamping about like a demon, and disfiguring himself as much as possible—trying, Chinese fashion, the experiment of terrifying the enemy into abject submission, and having a great deal of fun throughout.

Growing more and more superstitious about this mysteriously delivered blow from a man of smaller stature, and his apparent confidence to do it again any number of times, Tusk remained in a sitting position and stared. He became gradually impressed with a feeling that here was his master, and the more Brent raved the more he cringed. At last he whined:

"I don't want no moh!"

"Will you come back with me and tell Tom Hewlet what I say?"

"Yep."

"And make him believe it?"

"He's durn sure to believe it when I tell 'im 'bout this heah!"

"All right; get up. You and I can be good friends, or damn bad ones, whichever you please; and it all depends on how you act tonight. Come on, before he goes to bed!"

As they proceeded toward Tom's house, but a few hundred yards away, Brent, still laughing under his breath, continued:

"You rub it in well, d'you hear? Tell him the Colonel, Mr. Dulany and I will give the sheriff papers that'll send him to the pen. D'you know how long people have to serve for blackmail? A hundred years; sometimes twice as long! And they can't get pardoned, either, but just break rocks every day, Sundays and Christmases, with their teeth."

"With yoh teeth!" Tusk cried.

"Of course, with your teeth," Brent chuckled. "Ain't your hands cut off? And sometimes they feed the rocks to you hot, and you never get any water—when you go up for blackmail! It takes—oh, I should say, about fifty years for a man to go sort of crazy and begin to yell; but I showed the keepers how to stop that. Now, they put fish hooks in your tongue, and tie you up—"

"Great Gawd A'mighty!" Tusk screamed, springing away from him. "Don't tell me no moh—it's plumb wicked!"

"I haven't begun to tell you half, yet!"

"Naw, naw. Mister Whatever-yoh-name-is, I won't listen to no moh!"

Brent carried a small electric torch, and this happened to be in his hand while he was thus amusing himself with Potter. Absently now he pressed the button and watched the light, shining behind his closed fingers, turn them a bright, transparent red. He did not realize that Tusk had been keeping a close eye on him until he heard another exclamation of horror. For the instant he partially suspected mischief and wheeled about, but one look at the half-wit dissipated all doubt. He was standing with his mouth open, a picture of abject fear, trying to speak, stammering, and finally staggered to the fence. Brent was really concerned for him, thinking it might be some sort of a fit: but Tusk had turned and, although cringing, was staring back with enchanted eyes.

"Devil!" he hoarsely whispered. "You're full of fire! I jest seen you light up like a lightnin'-bug! You're a devil! I know; a devil!"

"Oh," Brent, more than ever delighted with this adventure, began to understand, "I see what you mean! Yes, sure 'nough, I'm the devil—the very old boy himself, dressed up this way to fool people. Zip!" He let the torch flash again behind his closed fingers, and again Tusk gasped and trembled as they turned magically aglow.

"Shut up," Brent commanded. "You'll scare Tom! And if you tell a soul who I am—well, you can guess what I'll do to you! Now call Tom out, and put it to him strong. I'll stand in the fence here and listen; and if you don't put it to him strong!—" Again the electric torch.

Tusk's wavering call sounded before the broken gate, and the injured voice of Mrs. Hewlet answered. In a few minutes Tom emerged from the side of the house as before; but a moment after him crept another figure, stealing through the shadows in a detour and stopping behind the same bush which sheltered Brent. She was not seen by anyone but him, nor did she know that he was there.

"Tom," the big fellow whined, "I jest seen 'im;—that—that man 'bout yoh hund'ed."

Hewlet gave a sign of satisfaction, while Brent wanted to indulge a chuckle which seemed to arise from all parts of him. He was immeasurably pleased. He thought humorously of Frankenstein, and how he must have felt with the monster in his keeping. It was weird, fascinating, and altogether to his liking.

"He's just beat the hell out of me down the road," Tusk whimpered; "an now him an' the Cunnel's goin' to town to git you 'rested."

Tom's jaw dropped in utter surprise at both of these statements.

"'Rested!" he cried. "What for?"

"That askin' for money was blackmail—blackmail, Tom! Don't forgit the word. An' it's fifty year in the pen with fishhooks in yoh tongue."

"Shet up!" Tom cried again. "What you mean? They're after me?"

He failed to see that his informer was in a dripping perspiration and hardly able to stand from fright. He saw nothing beyond a dawning fear that he had gone too far.

"You mean they're already started, or talkin' 'bout startin'?" he asked again.

"Don't ask me no moh," Tusk wailed. "It ain't decent to speak of! An', oh, my Gawd, I'm a goner if you don't git this hammered inter you good an' strong. I'd better do it now!"

Thereupon he made a grab for the luckless Hewlet, who eluded the iron hands in the nick of time and retreated toward the house.

"Go home, Tusk," he warned. "You're drunk tonight. I'll be at yoh cabin in the mawnin'." And, with this parting promise, he went in.

Tusk was even about to follow, having no intention of incurring the devil's displeasure; but Brent spoke softly from his hiding place and his satellite obediently returned.

"You've done very well, this time," the pseudo Mephisto whispered. "Don't tackle him again till I say. Now go home." And to emphasize this he put his teeth over the end of the little torch and flashed it. Again Tusk sprang away with a snarl of fear, and Brent croaked in a sepulchral voice: "Nothing'll hurt you as long as you obey me, Mr. Faust. Now beat it!"

The terrified man did this willingly enough and when he had been swallowed into the night Brent, stepping around the bush, confronted Nancy.

"I didn't know you were heah when I came," she explained, with a shade of uneasiness in her voice and embarrassment in her eyes.

"You heard everything, didn't you," he said regretfully. "I might have spared you this."

"You needn't of," she replied. "Pappy came in boastin' of what Tusk was goin' to do for him, so I slipped out to listen. But I tried to stop him, honest I did; an' I'm awful sorry any of my people 'd treat you that a-way!"

"Great God," he said in a husky voice, taking her hands, "how can you feel sorry when I was all to blame!"

"Oh, Brent," she looked away, "we mustn't ever speak of that!" She had withdrawn her hands and now stood somewhat apart, glancing toward the house and contemplating a dash for it. He read this.

"Not yet," he said. "You can't go in yet, for I want to talk to you—I want to be honest with you. Come!"

As though drawn by some invisible force she followed, and together they walked down the pike until the house was shut from view. He turned then, and was about to speak but waited, listening. It was one of those very still nights of heavy atmosphere when sounds carry great distances, and he had detected the leisurely galloping of two horses. Soon he heard them slow down at the stream where he and Tusk had fought; then a wave of laughter, mingled with the splash of water and iron shod hoofs striking upon loose stones, reached him. After this the galloping recommenced.

Had he wanted he might have stepped farther into the shadows and escaped detection; but he waited until they were nearly abreast, then called. Dale pulled up with a jerk, and Jane leaned over her pummel peering into the darkness where they stood. He spoke now, and she answered:

"Hello, Brent! Oh, is it you, Nancy?"

Try as she did, with all of her might, to make this greeting natural, the alert perception of the engineer heard only her surprise—her hurt surprise—that Nancy was there. Had she come unexpectedly upon Nancy in a foreign hospital bed, she might have said it—to Brent's ears—in identically the same way.

"We didn't want you to pass without saying howdy," Brent explained. "Where away in such a hurry?"

"I supped this night with my lord John May," she had rallied now, "and Sir Dale is seeing me on the road. Whence lies your way?"

"The way of the penitent," he declared.

"'Tis not so hard as the transgressor's," she warned, galloping on.

"Why did you stop her?" Nancy asked, looking at him in wonder. "She needn't have seen you heah?"

"I wanted her to see—how pretty you are," he answered; but during that pause, slight as it was, she realized he had stubbornly, defiantly, baffled his pride.

"Didn't you say something about bein' honest?" she naively asked.

His face grew sober. "I wanted her to see us; I want her to know I think it's a compliment if you talk to me by the roadside. That's all. No, it isn't all," he went on. "I want you to decide something, and now it'll be easier for you to decide, because they did see us. I'm in earnest; I don't want any prudish weights on this conversation. If they think there's something wrong, so much the better. But the very first thing I want to say to you is, that I've been a pup. I want to be a man with you—as much of a man as you were a noble girl by coming over to Arden the other night!" She was staring at him in utter amazement. "You saw through me that night," he was talking more hurriedly. "You know what a scoundrel I was! There's no use mincing words, no use holding up the mask any more. If it hurts you, remember I'm not sparing myself;—I couldn't spare myself, for you've made me feel too unutterably low. But I do want to be honest with you!"

"Brent," she gave a curious little laugh, "what's the matter with you tonight?"

"There's nothing the matter—yes, there is, too! There's everything the matter. I'm just a curl of smoke from hell when I drink too much. Any draft of desire takes me with it—sucks me up the black flues of intrigue and adventure. I'm making no excuses, for I like it. It's fascinatingly kaleidoscopic. It's Life; reflected and re-reflected in Life's thousand mirrors, with the beauties magnified and the dull places rubbed out. No apology for myself—but I'm accountable to you when you're drawn into it!"

He was talking blindly, impulsively ahead, carried on a wave of self denunciation, and not considering that she might be wholly perplexed by the metaphors which sprang so rapidly from his tongue.

She merely stood looking up at him; understanding only that he was moved by a tremendous force, and that somehow she—as he had just said—was drawn into it.

"A week ago tonight," he began, but she gave a quick, inarticulate cry.

"Please don't say anything about that night," her voice was trembling. "It burns my soul!"

"Yes, I will. We'll look at it squarely for this once, and your soul will treat it calmly. Why not? Wasn't it your victory? Forget you're a girl, and I a man, and for a minute let's have honest outspoken words which might come from two people who've been through an hour neither one of them will ever forget!"

"No, I won't ever forget," she murmured.

"Nor I. Did you know I was a sneak in pretending to love you then? Did you know it was a lie?"

She could never have realized what it cost him to blurt out these words.

"I knew it when—I had a chance to think," she faltered, not feeling that outspoken thoughts were as simple as he seemed to find them, "When I saw it wasn't you that I loved, but just the things you said, I knew I couldn't love you either. That's made it seem easier, Brent."

"And still you came to Arden to help me?" he looked curiously down at her.

"But I'd forgiven you, an'—an' it wasn't all yoh fault!" Then, looking up at him with hardly a trace of embarrassment, she added: "The blind girl showed me! You'd ought to know her, Brent!"

"Who is that blind girl?"

"Who? Oh, Brent, don't you know a-tall? Listen!"

She turned him about and pointed to the horizon beyond Snarly Knob. There was a subcurrent of excitement in her voice, and the night seemed to grow more still as she went on speaking. The story was dramatic and moving, and frequently her eyes would strain toward the distant sky-line as though the face of some strong presence were gazing out with inscrutable calmness. It was some time again before either of them spoke, and, when he did, she was watching him with a new softness.

"Who'd ever suppose," he murmured, gazing into the blue-black east which drew him with something more than a curious interest, "there was anything like that up in those God-forsaken mountains!"

"Miss Jane says there are things like that everywhere, Brent."

"Maybe there are," he took a deep breath. "I've just happened to miss 'em. I wish I hadn't."

She could not help laughing just a little at his doleful expression—and, moreover, she was happy, just a little, too.

"You seem to have repentance pasted all over you, Brent! Pappy gets that way when his whiskey runs out. But it's moh becomin' to you! I wish Miss Jane could see it!"

He flushed, and she laughed again.

"Miss Jane has already seen us tonight," he said in a low voice. "I don't know about her, or Dale, but there are others who'll put an entirely false construction on our being together. You know that. Tell me something: would you be willing to marry me and go away tomorrow?"

Just how far Nancy's vision penetrated this speech, perhaps she did not know; but she stood very still, scarcely breathing and holding her hands in a vice-like grip. She tried to make another pretense of laughing, but it failed; and her voice was sad when she turned to him.

"I don't reckon I'm the kind that'll be hurt much by what people say." Coming nearer, her eyes searched his face which was still turned to the ground, and she whispered: "Which'd be worse, Brent: goin' away married an' without love, or unmarried an' with love?"

He looked up in surprise: "The world wouldn't talk if we were married!"

"Don't you believe it, Brent," she said quietly. "The world 'd talk if you married a girl like me, moh'n it would if you didn't. I've been awake for seven days, Brent, an' I ain't a girl no moh in some ways. An' Brent," her cheeks were flaming now, "I might give you anythin' if we honest loved, an' not be ashamed;—but as we don't, a thousand marriages couldn't keep me from shrivelin' up whenever you looked at me! We'd despise each other in no time," she added, with another forced laugh.

"I don't know," he murmured.

"Well, I do," she now exclaimed with her old time gaiety. "Stand right still, an' shut yoh eyes, an' don't move till I say good night! Promise?"

"What's the game?" he asked.

"Never mind! You do what I say!"

"All right, I promise," he smiled.

The seconds passed and he wondered what she was doing. He knew she could not be very far away. Then there was a slight rustle and her lips touched his cheek.

"This," she whispered, "is because for the first time in yoh life you've got what Miss Jane calls grit. Don't move!" There was another pause, and her lips touched his other cheek. "This," again she whispered, "means the blind eyes over yonder are happy, 'cause you've made Nancy see. An' this," she tenderly drew down his face and kissed his forehead, "is that we'll be understandin' friends from now on till the day after never."

"Isn't there something else?" he pleaded.

"I reckon not," she whispered.

She must have moved silently, for in a few moments her voice called a good night from the broken gate.

He opened his eyes then, and moved toward his patient horse. He had a feeling that he may not have carried this interview gracefully; but he had done it honestly, and at real personal cost. He began to wonder what it might have cost Nancy—he had given that no thought. Were she a girl of Jane's type, he suspected she would now be hating him. But she was not like Jane; she was Nancy; and, even as his intuition whispered, her cheeks were still flushed with a pleasant warmth of satisfaction. To her it had been romantic and grateful. She seemed to feel that they were honorably at quits.



CHAPTER XVI

A SPRINGTIME SANTA CLAUS

As May crept up the calendar the little schoolhouse became the center of increased activity: commencement exercises were under daily rehearsal and the light of excited interest shone in every face.

It was a heterogeneous flock which had answered the call of Jane's horn eight months before: twenty-nine in all, ranging from children of eight to a woman of thirty-five. Nor were their characteristics less diverse. The tobacco-chewing, profane boy was there, with a stolen dirk thrust into his trousers' band, suggesting a turbulent future; and the girl, with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there, pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing these were the straight, courageous bearing and the tender faces of normal promise. Sturdy manhood and womanhood was written across the countenances of many who had answered the call of Jane's horn!

Nancy was not one of this wholesome medley. She was being especially taught aside;—and now, on this mid-May day, Jane sat with her beneath the trees while the room within was wrapped in the unrestful silence of tedious thought. Occasionally the teacher glanced at her when she happened to sigh and bend more intently over the knotty problem on her lap. Dale might have been here with them, for he had made strides during the past four weeks which put him far in the van, and Jane was satisfying this bewildering pace with extra work for the afternoons at home. For his was, indeed, a bewildering pace, spurred by an insatiable ambition that had become brutal in its determination to absorb every lesson, every fact and figure, every little jot of information which her schoolhouse and the Colonel's library contained. His time, from early morning until late at night, was divided between these places; but he advanced with so much greater speed in the seclusion of Arden that Jane had lately persuaded him to work there, rather than be subjected to the schoolroom noises which were as multitudinous as they were unavoidable. Thus it was that she and Nancy now sat alone beneath the trees.

The morning was warm and without a breath of air. A two weeks' drought, unusual at this season, had parched the country, bringing the wheat prematurely to head and causing anxiety about the hemp. But since tobacco, the most important crop, would not be set out till June, this agricultural unrest permeated little farther than impolite remarks about the weather. True, some of the springs were going dry, and all low verdure beside the pike was bedraggled and bowed beneath a coat of white dust. Out across the meadows of tired grass, and above the yellow fields prepared and waiting in sultry patience for their Lady Nicotiana,—everywhere along the level stretches that eye could sweep—were tormenting, dancing heat waves. Sleepy-eyed cattle spent their inert hours standing in the pasture pools with the water about their knees, or mingling with groups of sweaty brood mares clustered in the shady places. Dogs could not lie quiet; in the coolest corners of the kennel they drooled and panted. Nor were the creatures of the air immune; for directly above the girls a bird listlessly hopped from branch to branch, its wings drooping, and its beak apart. Jane sympathetically raised her eyes to it and began to fan herself with the cover of a book—although it was not unbearably warm in the grove, and the bird might have come from a long flight.

A child appeared in the doorway, hesitated and came out to her. Excusing this approach was the desire for help with a certain sum, but the true reason later became manifest when the little one, with dancing eyes, whispered something to the teacher's inclined ear.

"That is nice," Jane smiled.

Happily, with the noiselessness of unshod creatures, she ran and skipped back to the school room.

"Julia says that she's been promised a pair of shoes for commencement," Jane glanced over at Nancy. "I fear it's a case of sweeter anticipation than realization."

"She'll suffer moh agonies than shoes that night," Nancy laughed. "Hasn't she a piece to recite?"

Jane was about to answer when another youngster standing in the doorway held her attention. He, too, came timidly forth for assistance; but, as with Julia, his true reason was to impart in the same excited way a confidence. When this had been accomplished with much mysterious whispering, and he had again gone indoors, Jane looked at Nancy with a broader smile.

"More agony," she said. "Jimmy is promised boots, mind you! This is a gratifying proof that rural schools improve the understanding—but what on earth they will do without toes to wiggle is beyond me!"

The girls were still laughing over the thought of Jimmy's direful future when a third child appeared. It was a word in her reader now that furnished the conventional stumbling block on which to mount to her teacher's confidence.

"What?" that young woman exclaimed. "More shoes? Mercy! But it's very nice! And now run back and finish the page before I ring the bell."

This time, turning to Nancy, Jane sighed: "More shoes! All of this suffering humanity will surely not survive that night. Really, Nan, I think it's the most extraordinary thing I ever encountered the way these children's parents are shoeing them for commencement! Mark my words, before the exercises are half over we'll be hearing shoes drop all over the room. They simply won't keep them on! It'll be awful." She was about to say more, when Mrs. Owsley appeared in the door.

Mrs. Owsley was the thirty-five-year-old scholar; and the only one, until Dale came, who might strictly have been termed of the mountains. She was, moreover, the mother of nine smaller Owsleys—the smallest of whom she brought each day and laid in a box prepared for the purpose near the teacher's desk. The previous autumn she had left "Bill an' the other eight brats" back in their remote home, and moved down to Mother Owsley's, four miles from school, to which she walked each day, bare-footed, and carrying the infant. It was an enthusiasm for education, characteristic of these mountaineers, which might not be met anywhere else in a country termed civilized.

"Heavens!" gasped Jane. "I thought it was another child coming to tell me about shoes!"

"Did you ever see how Mrs. Owsley does with her shoes?" Nancy asked, being careful not to smile while the impassive woman's eyes were turned in her direction.

"You mean across her shoulder?"

Nancy nodded, giggling a little.

"The poor, poverty stricken dears, all of them," Jane tenderly exclaimed. "But that's a common custom in some parts of the mountains, Nan. I've seen it when a circuit-rider had come through, and was going to hold church somewhere; nearly all who possessed shoes would carry them across their shoulders that way during their long walk to attend, and then sit on the meetinghouse steps and put them on. Shoes have to last a long time up there," she added wistfully. "They mustn't be worn out by walking on them."

"I thought it was awful funny when I saw her do it," Nancy whispered. "You don't look like you ever went barefoot, Miss Jane!"

"I never did," Jane laughed. "I hated it so that I used to pick blackberries and sell them to keep myself supplied. My poor old Dad thought it a wicked extravagance, but I'd rather have gone without clothes than shoes."

"I hated it, too," Nancy quietly replied, "but never thought of makin' money. I wish I had!"

Mrs. Owsley stepped down from the doorway and crossed to them. In approaching her teacher she scorned any subterfuge, and spoke directly to the point.

"What'd ye git, ef yeou wuz me, Miss Jane? I got shoes, a'ready—these here'n; but this ole gingham's the onlies' dress I got, an' hit's a sorry lookin' thing! Mr. Bowser sez ef I don't hanker arter shoes I don't hev ter hev 'em;—he sez his store'll leave me take their wu'th outen sumthin' else. I reckon hit'll be all right ter the trustee!"

"What trustee do you mean?" Jane asked. There was a pucker of mystification between her eyes as she looked up at Mrs. Owsley.

But that countenance did not change. It never changed. The same yellowish face, rather long and horse-like, beneath the same hair plainly brushed back, looked at Jane now as it had looked at the world's multitude of privations and pittance of joys, this last score of years.

"The trustee," she answered, "what sees as how we-uns goin' ter school gits shoes—outen the school fund, I reckon 'twuz he said, or sumthin' that a-way. He's a-stayin' down thar by the Cunnel's, some-un says, so mebbe ye knows 'im. Not as I allow ter be beholden ter no one:—but commencement's commencement!"

"Why, Mrs. Owsley!" an accusing voice cried from the window. "He made us promise not to tell who he was!"

"'N' I don't kyeer what he done!" the imperturbable one answered. "I want ye-all ter know I don't take nuthin' underhand from nobody, less'n hit's my man, Bill!"

The accuser ducked from sight.

"Do you mean," Jane asked, "a man about twenty-four, or five, or six, or maybe seven—with sort of brown or grayish eyes, and—and rather handsome?"

"I don't know nuthin' 'bout all them colors in his eyes. I don't know nuthin' 'bout that," she repeated, "but I do 'llow he smoked them vile cigarettes till a body couldn't breathe!"

Jane's eyes left the mother of nine, swept past Nancy whom she saw still bending over her work, and finally rested in the shadows of some cool ferns. This somewhat unexpected announcement sent a wave of pleasure—evanescent, perhaps hardly perceptible—sweeping over her. Rather abruptly she said:

"I think your gingham looks very well, but you might get a nice print—if you'll have time to make it!"

"That's jest what I war a-thinkin' t'other day," the impassive face replied. "Red, with white dots on hit, sez I ter Mother Owsley, is jest the nicest thing! 'N' I sez ter Mister Bowser as how I hankered fer a dress like that; but he sez he done quit keepin' hit no moh. He sez he did hev a sight of hit onct, but so many of the wimmin folks come in ter buy hit, 'n' hit war sech a sight of trubble gittin' up 'n' settin' down agin, cuttin' off pieces 'n' waitin' on 'em, that he jest th'owed out what he had left 'n' allowed he wouldn't buy no moh."

This was all very serious to Mrs. Owsley and Jane replied in the same vein:

"Then a blue polka dot. I know he has that, and maybe I can help you make it up."

"Thank-ee," she turned to go back, "but I reckon Mother Owsley's Cyantha kin help some." She stood a moment, hesitating, then faced around, asking: "Ye hain't got a primer, or sumthin', I kin take ter Mother Owsley, hev ye? She's been hankerin' so ter larn a mite of readin' 'n' writin' since I went thar, 'n' can't git out ter come down hyar!"

"Is she too feeble?" Jane sympathetically asked.

"No, she hain't feeble; but she's got the craps ter look arter. Mother Owsley's right peert, but with sech a sight ter do 'tween sun-up 'n' dark holds her 'round home right tight. Her man's been crippled 'n' pohly fer a spell."

"Could she leave him to come here to a moonlight school?" Jane asked; an idea that had been forming for sometime now suddenly receiving fresh impetus. "Maybe even your Bill could come, and the children, too!"

Mrs. Owsley's hesitation showed her to be on unfamiliar ground, and Jane, who had spoken impulsively, added: "I'll talk to you about it this afternoon," whereupon the mountain woman this time went in.

"Now!" Nancy exclaimed, holding up her paper of long division. "It's come out even!"

"Good!—it's a hard one, too!"

"You bet it's a hard one," Nancy straightened her shoulders.

"We won't work any more today," Jane said and, after a pause, asked: "Did you hear what Mrs. Owsley and I were talking about?"

"I was tryin' to," Nancy laughed. "But this last old thing wouldn't come out even so I had to bring down two moh noughts, an' that sort of mixed me up! Is her husband out of the pen?"

"Mercy! I didn't know he was there!"

"I don't either, but she said somethin' 'bout a trusty, an' I just supposed it was him."

Jane began to laugh, somewhat immoderately for a teacher, and several heads appeared at the window in giggling surprise. She had become quite suddenly and thoroughly happy.

"She said trustee, Nan,—a school officer. But the only trustee for this school is the Colonel. There's a hitch somewhere," her eyes were dancing. "Did Brent tell you to buy something, too?"

Had Nancy not already been sitting on the ground, this unexpected question might have toppled her over. She gasped once, turned furiously red, and sat staring.

"Why, no, Miss Jane!"

"With his usual discretion he left you and Dale out," she mused. "I really think it was downright decent of him—the shoes, I mean!"

"I'm beginnin' to think those shoes have got on yoh brain," Nancy cried, and both again screamed with laughter.

"Nan, I don't understand how he succeeded, but he's palmed himself off as a trustee to give authority to the act and, after making arrangements with Mr. Bowser, sent all these children there to buy shoes, or something they're in need of, for our commencement. Don't you honestly think that's splendid? Who would have thought of it?"

"I wouldn't," Nancy murmured, looking at the ground. But the subject was becoming a bit perilous, and she asked:

"Are you goin' to start a moonlight school, Miss Jane?"

"I hadn't really thought of it seriously until just now. Would you help me with it if I did?"

"Good land, Miss Jane, I'd love that better'n anythin'! I'll drive 'em in, an' you stuff 'em with these sums! I bet they'll know somethin' then!"

"How many are there around here who can't read, do you suppose?"

"Well, old Hod Fugit can't; an' there's Willis—I forget his name, but down at the mill, you know! I don't think the sheriff can, either."

"Can your father—I mean Tom Hewlet?"

"Well, he sort of pokes along at it, but it ain't just what you'd call readin'. Sometimes, when he's right drunk, he gets a piece of old newspaper an' moves his mouth around. Oh, he did the funniest thing once!" she clapped her hands and bent over merrily. "He was workin' himself up into an awful spree, but misplaced his demijohn an' had us lookin' everywhere for it. I'd hid it, but never let on! He groaned around a lot, an' I think sort of suspected me; but after 'while settled down with the Bible. It was upside down, so that's how I don't think he can read!"

"Then what?"

"Just guess!" Nancy went into more convulsions of laughter. "He began, talkin' right loud an' rockin' his chair right fast: 'An' Solomen, the wise man, says to his Democrats that if a step-darter treats her Pappy mean, an' hides things, she'll go down—down—down—down—' an' all this time, Miss Jane, his voice was gettin' lower an' lower till, when it couldn't go no lower, he gurgled: 'ter hell!' Then he'd wait awhile, lookin' sort of sneakin' at me, turn some pages an' do it all over again—only each time he'd begin in a higher pitch so's he could get moh 'downs' in it, an' make it sound scarier. When I wouldn't pay any attention, he threw the Bible at me an' stomped out!"

"Is he back yet?" Jane seemed to lose some of her gaiety when asking this.

"No'm; an' I hope he won't never come back!"

"Have you any idea where he is?"

"Only he said he an' Tusk Potter were goin' in the mountains after ginseng. They go most every yeah. You can't guess the peace there's been at home this last month, Miss Jane!"

"I think I can," she murmured. "Nancy, suppose you were to work hard on those sums, and be more careful in the way you speak, and the school should grow enough for you to be my assistant, and Mr. McElroy should run his railroad through your house—where would Tom Hewlet and his wife go? Would they stay around here?"

"What a bully fairy-tale," the girl delightedly clasped one of Jane's hands. "No'm, I reckon he'd go out to Missouri an' live with his brother. He's always wantin' to. Why, Miss Jane? Is there any chance of all that?"

"I don't know, Nan. Maybe I was just dreaming."

"Then dream some more," she murmured.

The morning had worn on without a bell for recess. The room had become restive, and now Jane realized that the youngest of the Owsleys was lustily bawling. She glanced at the little watch in her belt, crying: "Heavens!" Then dashed toward the door to rescue her neglected charges; leaving Nancy under the trees to patch up the interrupted dream.



CHAPTER XVII

AT TOP SPEED

Brent had at one time promised Dale to take him out on the survey. This promise had been made in an unguarded moment—or, at least, without a suspicion that the mountaineer would keep so tenaciously after him until it was fulfilled. Now, with school closed the day before, he felt that the evil hour could no longer be postponed. He had no objection to Dale, or having him along on the work, if he would only take some recesses in his interminable string of questions. But this impetuous student, whose soul craved the heights of Lincoln and Clay, took no recesses.

Petulantly Brent had carried his woe to the Colonel, but, instead of sympathy, he found the old gentleman radiant;—declaring Dale would become so utterly absorbed in learning the secrets of this science, that the engineer would find himself being led out by the ears each morning at sunrise.

"The road is just as good as built," he had cried, "if you have along Dale's example of application!" Which comforted Brent not at all.

So this very morning the Colonel was astir long before breakfast, sharing in a measure the mountaineer's excitement. Anything, he had jovially averred, which inspired Brent to work, was worth getting up early to see.

"Don't stay out too long," he had counseled. "My Commencement dinner is tonight!"

Standing on the terrace he watched them trudge off toward the knobs, followed by five darkies carrying the lunch, axes, poles and transit. He noted, also—just as upon that day when Bob first took Dale to Flat Rock—that the mountaineer was forging ahead, and that his companion was evidently cautioning less speed.

"A little bit of that will put the road through," he chuckled.

They were crossing a pasture luxuriant with bluegrass where Lucy had been pensioned to while away in comfort her declining years; and now a more tender light came into the old gentleman's face. For he saw her head go up while yet a great way off from them, and saw her intently looking. He knew what difficulty, and with what yearning, she was urging her clouded eyes to do their best; and he guessed the exultation gradually creeping through her frame as she began to realize that Dale was near. Suddenly, as fast as age would permit, she broke into an awkward gallop, furiously whinnying, excitedly calling out her delight. Overtaking her master, who had not been once to see her in all these days, she thrust her muzzle across his shoulder to be petted, as of yore—and this deeply affected the Colonel. But the next instant he stiffened as a man of iron, for the mountaineer, furious at the interference, had struck her cruelly across the face. In utter dejection now she stood, looking after him as he strode away.

"Did you see dat?" Uncle Zack cried, and not till then did the Colonel know he was nearby.

"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair, Zack! Take her out four quarts of oats!"

"I don' see whar she's gwine put 'em, wid all dat grass inside her," he laughed. "If she wuz a man, I'd a-tucken her a toddy 'foh now to cheer her ole heart! But only de likes of me an' you kin eat ice-cream an' poh down hot coffee, an' pickle 'em wid licker an' not git ourse'ves kilt—ain' dat right, Marse John? Hawses an' dawgs an' cows an' sich, cyarn' put de stuff in dey stumicks dat we kin. It takes a suah-nuff man to do dat!"

The old gentleman was not listening. To his surprise he now saw Brent quickly make up the intervening space, grasp Dale by the shoulder and spin him around with every evidence of tremendous anger, then shake his fist in the mountaineer's face as though he were emphasizing a speech. To the Colonel's further astonishment he then saw Dale walk meekly back to the mare, put out his hand, and for several moments stroke her nose.

"An' did you see dat?" Uncle Zack yelled in high glee.

"I wouldn't have missed it for a million," the old gentleman cried.

"Mebbe she don' need no oats now! But I reckon she'd better have 'em, wid yoh com'liments, jest de same!"

"I wish Jane could have seen it," the Colonel murmured, keeping his eyes on them.

"Dar ain' no reason why she cyarn' be tol' 'bout it," Zack winked to himself, starting to the stables for a full measure of oats.

At the Colonel's request she came over early in the afternoon to see to the decorations for his table, and brought a bag with the idea of dressing there. While carrying this into the house Zack graphically made known the drama in the pasture—which may or may not have been the reason why, an hour later as she moved about the flowers, the old gentleman several times wondered why he had never before remarked the beauty of her voice.

This dinner was a new institution at Arden. It came into existence with the opening day of school, when the old gentleman announced his intention of entertaining after each commencement for the girl who had made the greatest progress. When Jane told him a week ago that Nancy was to be his guest of honor, he had received the news as though she were a princess. However he might have flinched inside, no suspicion of it reached as far as his eyes or face. That very night other guests were appropriately selected from the neighborhood, and the invitations sent forthwith.

The sun hung low in the sky when the surveyors returned. Dale, as might have been expected, came leading, and dashed up the steps with scarcely a nod to the Colonel who sat amusedly looking on. He impetuously entered the library, searched feverishly along the shelves for a text book on surveying that he had previously seen, jerked it out and began to scan its pages. Brent, on the other hand, was dragging himself along, groaning wearily. When he reached the porch he flopped into a chair and again groaned.

"Uncle Zack, you'll have to bring my dinner up stairs. I can't dress, or anything!"

"Why, sir," the Colonel turned in alarm, "what has happened?"

"Everything's happened," Brent groaned. "That boob in there walked my legs off, and talked my head off, and I'm all in! Gee!—push my foot out a little farther, Uncle Zack! Oh, Lord! Can't somebody catch somebody's eye? The seven-year drought of Egypt's in my throat!"

The Colonel began to laugh, while Zack, highly elated, said:

"Dat wuz a plague, Marse Brent!"

"Well, don't I know it?" he looked pitifully up at him.

"Naw, sah," Zack laughed again. "I mean de 'Gyptians didn' have no drought; dey had de plague dem seben yeahs! I 'member dat story!"

"Zack, this isn't any time to split hairs over what the Egyptians had. Come out of the ages, and focus your mind on what I've got!"

The old fellow disappeared with a chuckle, still audible after reaching the dining-room. The Colonel, too, was chuckling.

"It's all right to laugh, Colonel, and make everybody hate you, but I'll bet we walked forty miles! From the very moment that human engine cranked himself up this morning, he's been pressing the accelerator with spark advanced every second of the time. Don't think I'm crazy, but gas engine terms are the only ones to describe him. The next time he and I go on that survey, I go alone—which accounts for the Mac in McElroy," he added with a grin.

"Never mind," the old gentleman said, "you'll feel better in a few minutes."

"That's just the trouble," Brent complained. "If I hadn't lapped up so much of your delectable nose-paint, that hayseed couldn't have walked me to death. I'm as good a man as he is any day—when in condition!"

Jane, standing within the hall, heard this, and at once perceived the great dawning hope which chance had suddenly thrust before her. It was a hope for the railroad, for her people. Passing into the library she looked over Dale's shoulder, took the book from his hand, and smiled at it.

"You can't make anything out of this, yet," she said. "If you want to build railroads yourself some time, what you need now is actual experience; and you can get it if you persist."

"How?" he asked eagerly.

"Make Brent go out every day till the work is done—then I've a plan for you."

"What?" he was growing very much excited.

"Sh," she laughed. "I'll tell you some other time. Now go up and dress; dinner will be ready in half an hour."

As he sprang to obey, a glance at his determined jaw, the enthusiasm of his stride, told her that Brent might not henceforth have such an idle time of it. His voice came in to her now.

"——and he threw all the lunch away," he was telling the Colonel, "because he said we didn't have time to eat it. I wanted to kill him; and would, if it hadn't struck me as being so darned funny! But I will say that we did more than I've ever seen done in a day—even with a trained party! What's more, we can save three miles. Dale did that, too!"

"This is encouraging, sir!" the old gentleman cried.

"It's more than that, Colonel—it's a find! Entirely disregarding the fact that I'd made a reconnaissance, he dragged me about like a toy, and finally, blest if he didn't scoot into a natural tunnel. I knew it was there, too, but never thought of following it up! We can go through it without turning a shovel of earth or shooting a stone. It not only saves the three miles I spoke of, but a terrible amount of cutting, and doesn't add a fraction to our ruling grade; bringing us out—I'll tell you where it brings us out! You know a place, about three hundred feet under a bold spur sticking to the north face of Snarly?—where a stream boils down into a sort of cave and disappears?"

"Oh, yes. That is our natural freak around this country—that and your tunnel! I know them well!"

"Well, we come out there, about two miles above this disappearing stream. It's a cinch! By the way, what becomes of that stream?"

"No one knows. Years ago we painted several pieces of wood, and hacked some logs in a certain way for identification, then let them all float down and be sucked into that hole. None ever bobbed up at our end, and, so far as we ever heard, they were never found floating on other streams. I fancy the water rushes into some vast subterranean sea."

Zack came out with the beverage, Brent bowed to the Colonel, drank it and sighed. It was an atrociously strong toddy, purposely made so by the old servant to compensate for the long day's absence; and almost at once, especially as he had eaten nothing since breakfast, its strength began to tell.

"Zack, when Doctor Meal comes tonight, I wish you'd send him up to graft a dozen mule legs on me."

"Mule legs, Marse Brent!" the old negro peered at him.

"I haven't heard from Meal," the old gentleman laughed. "But there is a young doctor named Stone who will be here; he might do it."

There were, indeed, now two doctors in Buckville: the former old man with a soft name, who wore long whiskers which served to hide the missing collar and cravat, who had for forty years ministered to the needs of the surrounding country, who rode a pacing mare and carried medicines in a saddle-bag across her back;—and he of the hard name, who had lately come as graduate of the University, who visited the sick in a gasoline runabout of uncertain age which steered with a lever and heaved prodigiously, who wrote prescriptions to be filled at the drug-store. If Doctor Meal were not among his bees, or grafting pear buds, he might be found in a tilted chair on the sidewalk, beneath the giant locust trees which shaded the town's one pharmacy. But Doctor Stone's telephone was invariably answered by a trained servant who, if he were away, knew exactly where to find him. Perhaps in no other respects was the changing life of Buckville better illustrated than by these two doctors: the old and the new; the passing and the coming. And because it was the passing, Doctor Meal had not yet gone as far as the post office for his mail; but in less than an hour after the stamp had been cancelled on Stone's invitation, the Colonel received his acceptance by telephone.

"Well," Brent sighed, "I've got to get 'em somewhere!"

"You might gallop up stairs on the four you have," the Colonel suggested. "Our guests will soon be arriving."

"And Dale will beat you down," Jane called from the library.

"Oh, Jane, I'm all in," he groaned. "I can't, honest!"

"Are you so much more tired than Dale?" she asked sweetly.

"Certainly not," he flushed.

He pushed himself slowly out of the chair and went to the French window.

"Where are you?" he began asking before stepping through. "I want some encouragment to climb those stairs!"

She was sitting, balanced lightly on the library table, with her hands clasped about one knee.

"What an old man you've suddenly become," she laughed.

"You'd be an old man, too," he said, "if you'd been paced all day by a camel!"

"I thought engineers were inured to those things;—I thought they could withstand all manner of hardships;—that, really, the elements themselves were playthings in their hands!"

He leaned against the table and looked down at her. That toddy, put into his tired and empty frame, was gripping him with surprising activity.

"No," he slowly replied. "Engineers can't master all the elements;—at least, I know one who can't. I wish he could!"

She may have flushed slightly, but her chin kept its tantalizing tip and her eyes their laughing mischief.

"One never knows what one can do until one tries," she said; and after a dangerous hesitation, added: "I believe this is the first day you've really attempted any serious work since you came."

Now, when a girl balances on the edge of a table in a softly lighted room, with her hands clasped about one of her knees, her chin tipped enticingly up, and a riot of mischief rippling through her eyes and parted lips, she has no business telling an over-toddied gentleman that he'll never know what he can do until he tries. She may add that she refers to the building of a railroad, to the conquering of a nation, to the playing of a hand of bridge—but he will see nothing beyond the seductive challenge. And Brent looked another instant at that enticing picture, then stooped down and kissed her hair.

There was no tilted chin, no laughing challenge, now as she sprang up and faced him. The change in her was like that of a limpid pool which has suddenly become roiled by a violent splash, and her eyes flashed as though all the vials of hate were about to be broken upon his head.

"I thought you were a gentleman." Her voice came slowly, with such utter contempt that he winced.

"Your thought is quite correct," he said. "I am a gentleman, and a man, and therefore vulnerable to such a temptation as you willfully threw at me."

Her cheeks flamed. "I never dreamed of such a thing!"

"Don't misunderstand me. I didn't say invitation; I said temptation."

"But you meant invitation," she hotly retorted.

"I know I did," he surprised her by admitting, "and you meant invitation, also. If you didn't, you're stupid;—and I'd rather think of you as daring than stupid."

"You will please not think of me at all, or speak to me, ever again!" she coolly said, and left the room.

Brent looked at the door through which she had disappeared. For several minutes he stood, without any sign of movement, except that his teeth were pressing rather hard upon his lower lip.

"John Barleycorn, you're a damned sneak," he muttered. "I've half a notion never to speak to you again!"

Then, with a sigh, he went up stairs to dress.



CHAPTER XVIII

A DINNER OF SILENCES

The dinner was late, because Uncle Zack, wishing to make an everlasting impression upon these neighbors of more moderate circumstances, had spurred the cook to the limit of her capacity. So family and guests were scattered about the porch, conversationally distrait as people are wont to be while momentarily expecting the servant's announcement.

Nancy, in whose toilette discerning eyes would have seen a generous share of Ann and Jane, was talking to the Colonel; who, in his turn, was making her position of honor guest less trying than she had pictured it during that long day of suspense.

Brent, terribly in the blues, sat at the extreme end of the porch, pretending to read the morning paper which had come in that afternoon's rural mail. Jane and Ann were near by, and Jane was noticeably quiet. Bob, having in mind his tobacco crop, called to the reader:

"What's the weather prediction for this section, old scout?"

The engineer sighed and let his eyes travel to Jane who was gazing in moody silence out at the tangle of trees and vines. Turning again to the paper, and with much rustling of the pages, he made a pretense of reading:

"The high barometric pressure and lovely sunshine generally spreading over central and southeastern Kentucky is showing no disposition to move in the direction of Arden. Forecast for the next twenty-four hours: great humility, and low, angry clouds, accompanied by moisture in the eyes and a crackling drought under the fourth left rib. Here," he handed the paper to Bob, and sent another questioning glance at Jane, "read it for yourself. I'm going in before the storm bursts!"

Bob looked after him, and then his surprised eyes sought Ann; but that young matron answered with a comprehensive smile, whereupon he sank comfortably behind the pages. Ann might have smiled again had she followed Brent to the dining-room, and there watched him change two place-cards.

Thus it chanced that Jane found herself seated next to him, and, having arranged the place-cards herself, understood exactly how it came about. The situation was decidedly awkward, and she came very near wishing their quarrel might have been postponed a few hours; especially as she realized that her other side was flanked by the Colonel, with Nancy on his right—a condition positively closing any hope of attention from this kind-hearted host. In a few minutes she was driven to seek refuge across the table in Dale; but Ann—having made a shrewd, though by no means accurate, diagnosis of the situation—determinedly held the mountaineer in leash. She then turned to Bob, but he had become engrossed with a neighbor on the subject of crops. Miss Liz was next sounded, but that lady, frivolously entangled with various occupations, proved hopeless. Finally, she tried eating, but the silence of her plate became utterly intolerable. Brent had been waiting for this.

"It's no use," he softly told her. "Suppose we make up!"

She might not have heard him.

"Don't you think it is inconsiderate to our host, and the others?" he asked. "They're sure to notice it!"

Silence.

"I didn't mean to offend you;—I was just bowled over, that's the simple truth!"

He might have been talking to an empty room.

"You've been so much like a sister to me," he ventured again, "that I didn't stop to think; and only—only acted on the very same impulse I would if you actually were my sister!" (Oh, Brent, you unconscionable liar!)

Still there was silence.

"Let's count," he suggested. "It won't be talking, and, at least, will deceive the table."

Silence.

"We might say the Lord's Prayer! That's certainly proper, and you can leave out 'as we forgive others.'"

In spite of herself the faintest shadow of a smile touched her lips, but their silence was absolute.

"Or we might try Mother Goose," again came the pleading voice. "We needn't speak after tonight—rather after this dinner. We can't, in fact, if I'm going home tomorrow! Shouldn't we make some effort to keep from spoiling the others' good time?"

Going home tomorrow? She had not heard of that! What would become of the railroad? What would become—but nothing mattered except the railroad! Was he acute enough to reason that he could move her by this threat, she wondered? And if he were, and if she yielded, would he not use it as a weapon for future forgivenesses, when he might again be taking her for his sister—something which he did not possess? This idea sealed her determination. Yet, on second thought she relented—oh, it could scarcely be called relenting—just a wee bit and, still looking steadfastly down at her plate, in a monotonous voice, said:

"Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard."

"Fine!" he laughed, but she quietly interrupted him:

"Nothing but Mother Goose—and, after this evening, nothing, ever!"

He drew a wry face, murmuring:

"Little Jack Sprite is very contrite, and wants to make up with his lady!"

She puzzled a moment over Little Jack Sprite. It did not seem quite relevant to the nursery classic which, only a few years back, she had read many times to Bip.

"That isn't Mother Goose," she finally stated. "I shan't do this any more."

"But it is," he protested, "and I'll show it to you in the book! They were reading Mother Goose to me long after you lost interest in it."

There was no rise to this, and he cautiously added:

"My poor brain, while ages older, has never developed up to yours. Do you know any rhymes, at all?"

Silence.

She looked again at Dale and found him listening to Ann. Again the Colonel proved unpromising. One slight remark was entirely lost on someone else, and Miss Liz offered more remote possibilities than before. After the situation recommenced its torture, rather wearily she said to her plate:

"Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon."

"I love that one," he whispered, and, taking up her meter, continued: "The little dog howled, and the pretty girl scowled, but promised to make up soon! That's the second verse."

Another silence, but not so prolonged, when her voice reached him:

"Brent, Brent, the rich man's son, broke his word and away he run!"

"Heart," he corrected. "'Broke his heart,' is the way that goes!"

The silence was desperate now, and, after he had exhausted many forms of pleading, she simply said:

"Hark, hark, the dogs do bark, the beggars are coming to town!"

"I don't think it's nice to be so personal in our Mother Goose party," he reproved her. "However, if you insist—"

"But I don't insist!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I was just going to repeat: 'There was a little boy and a little girl lived in an alley.' Will you finish it out?"

"I don't remember it," she said, too hurriedly to be convincing. "I'll say this one: 'Birds of a feather flock together, and so will pigs and swine; rats and mice will have their choice, and so will I have mine.'"

"You have a choice collection, at any rate," he grinned.

"Some verses," she explained, "were added to the very recent editions used in my childhood."

His grin became broader. "I hoped you might come across on that before the evening was over. Has your very recent edition the one in it about: 'Jane was saucy, Jane was pert'?"

"You're a bit shocking tonight," she said, turning to the Colonel, whose attention was still on Nancy.

Brent waited a minute, then: "Maybe you don't remember this one in your very recent edition: 'A hard-hearted Queen from Flat Rock, Whose anger came as a great shock, Said: I will not speak, sir, To you for a week, sir, So he went out and—' but I haven't had time to make the last line fit. You ought to laugh now!"

"I wish I could."

"It's original!"

"So I judge."

"Is that open window too cool for you?"

Silence.

"Here's another out of your very recent edition," he began, when she desperately turned to him.

"I wish you'd play fair!"

"Have you played fair?" he asked.

"I might have expected an evasion from you!"

"Don't muddy the water, please. Let's whittle on one stick at a time. Have you played fair?"

"Of course, I have!"

"That's all I want to know."

But this reply suggested a subtle accusation which she did not like, and she asked:

"What do you mean?"

"Only this," he leaned so that his words could not be overheard, and his voice was tense with a strange seriousness. "You knew perfectly well that I was hardly to blame—and, blamable as that defense may be, what I did was done reverently. You may not know, though I'll tell you now, that you were the most exquisite thing I have ever beheld!—absolutely the most adorable and exquisite! You literally balanced yourself before my eyes, you literally taunted me with words which were a challenge of unresisting sweetness, you literally drew me, and when I came, you flew into a rage. You call that fair? I call it grossly unfair! Take it from me, Jane, that a girl who willfully fires a man, as Almighty God fires the heavens in a tempest, and then springs behind her propriety to escape, has a serious form of pyromania that'll consume her some day, just as sure as I'm talking to you—but not before it drives a lot of decent fellows to eternal flames!"

"You're talking like a madman!" she gasped.

"Far from it. I'm talking the most rational stuff you ever heard in all your life! In fact, your very presence compels me to be rational."

"An enigmatic compliment," she could not help smiling. "What kind of deliriant have you been taking tonight?"

"You!" he whispered. "Just you, who intoxicate and torture me! And as for enigmatic compliments, I swear that you inspire me with only the highest reverence at all times. Don't think the library episode indicates a lack of respect! It was the very soul of reverence speaking—though," he slowly added, "it would not have spoken in just that way if Zack's toddy—"

"I'm beginning to hate the very word of julep and toddy," she said passionately; and the Colonel, hearing this, turned with an amused expression of surprise.

Ann had let Dale off her leash, and he now was making mental charges across the table to Jane, very much as a playful puppy would physically have done to one it wished to attract. She caught his eye and smiled, and then saw the haunted look in his face which aroused her at once to what was going on.

The table had centered in a general conversation, and Miss Liz, without suspecting the sting it carried, had launched into a tirade against the lawlessness of the mountaineers who killed and were killed with an abandon worthy of Apaches. That he should now be so frantically signalling, as though he knew in her would be found help, touched the girl's responsive nature. Brent, seeing this—as he saw much that passed about him—whispered to her:

"After all's said and done, it's a good feeling—that of being needed, isn't it?"

"Our mountaineers are not law breakers, Lizzie," the Colonel was saying with more than ordinary sharpness in defense of his guest—and of his State. "They keep the law extraordinarily well."

"How can you make such a statement!" the good lady cried. "I constantly hear of men being killed up in that wicked country!"

"It's very much exaggerated, as Brent would say," he chuckled. "At any rate," he cleared his throat, "I refer to the common law."

Bob and Brent exchanged winks. They knew the old gentleman was getting frightfully tangled, and were curious to see how he would work himself out of it.

"Then I suppose you mean," her voice rang with the challenge, "that killing people is compatible with the common law?"

"Legal hangings are," he smiled blandly. "But, what I do seriously mean is this: the common law of a country, and therefore the common law of a place, is merely—and nothing more than—a common custom plus the power to change that custom. This being the case, the mountaineer of Kentucky is within the common law of his section, providing that he kills only within that section where it is a common custom—plus the power to change that custom."

Miss Liz sighed. "It doesn't sound like good sense," she said, "but may be correct. I have always thought that law is law, everywhere."

"Law is law, my dear," he gently explained to her, "until it is changed; certainly. But it is not always good sense. Take our waterways hereabouts! They are every one governed by the same old law of riparian rights which we took from England, whose waterways are no more like those in this country than threads are like ropes. And, moreover, England's law was construed long before the dream of artificial power, having to do merely with streams adapted to navigation. Who cared then for a falls or rapids? Who would have been mad enough to think of bridled electricity? So today, these falls and rapids, which are quite out of the question for navigable purposes, but possess as great a value in other respects to the people at large, are entirely demoralized through the application of an antiquated law framed to deal with streams of a totally different character. Don't you see, my dear, how fallible may be the thing called law if it runs counter to public good? And does it not show you that every common law must be—in order to be sensible—a consensus of public consent? Therefore, do I maintain that the mountaineers of our proud State, who in common consent prosecute their own feuds in their own domain, are within the common law of that domain. Some day, when Brent's and other railroads have poured into them a different civilization, their environment will be changed;—there will arise amongst them a giant to turn things upside down—as Jeremy Bentham threw defiance to the law of diodens."

The Colonel now, having distorted a little knowledge into a great flow of verbal pyrotechnics which hopelessly confused and downed Miss Liz, turned back to Nancy with a satisfied smile.

"Wasn't diodens a sort of old law that confiscated anything which destroyed life?" Brent, in an undertone, asked Jane.

It seemed a safe enough subject, and she nodded: "I think so."

"I was just wondering," he whispered, "that if this law prevailed now, which would the State confiscate—your eyes, your mouth, the tip of your chin, your—"

"If thoughts kill," she frowned, "my mind would be seized. I've murdered you several times with that."

"You've murdered me several times with everything about you! I wish I were the State!"

"State of Idiocy? Why carry coals to Newcastle?"

"To heap on your head," he laughed, "and scorch your uncharitable soul!"

"My poor lost soul," she murmured.

"Then take notice that, if finders are keepers, I'm heading a search party."

She looked gaily up at him, for it was hard to remember that she was angry; but quickly her face sobered.

"I forgot, and I must not forget, that you've mortally offended me."

There was something very serious in the way she said it—something totally beyond the slightest echo of banter—that affected him. She was looking back fearlessly into his face, and he saw the hurt in her eyes—and he saw in her eyes that she was anxious. A certain faint and subtle element of surprise and wonderment had passed across them, like a cloud shadow over a sunlit field of waving grain. It thrilled him to the very depth of his nature. For the first time in his life he was being driven by an influence, by a storm, or what you will, which contained not one element of self.

"For the love of God, what have you done?" he whispered, almost accusingly in his earnestness.

"Done?" she asked, looking away from him. "You are saying queer things tonight!"

"I am experiencing queer things tonight," his voice trembled. "May I come tomorrow and apologize properly?"

"Apologies are futile; besides, I am going to church with Bip."

"Then the next Sunday!" he entreated. "I know you've a lot to forgive—but I'm so terribly sorry! It hasn't murdered our friendship, has it, Jane?"

"I—I don't know. I'm tired tonight, and maybe can't see things as I should."

"I'm coming tomorrow, anyway, and explain," he whispered.

"No. And please promise you will never refer to this evening again!"

"Very well. And there's another promise I'll make you, too—"

But Miss Liz had arisen, and the others were pushing back their chairs, so Jane did not hear this other promise he would have made; for she was moving from the table with Doctor Stone, having pinned that gentleman as they first arose with no intention of letting him leave her. He had made one or two amateurish efforts to wait for Nancy, and now in a bewildered sort of way wondered why he continued with this other girl against his will. Doctor Stone's university course had not included psychodynamics in the female species. Thus it was that he walked from the dining-room to its carefully trimmed terrace with Jane, and thus it was that Nancy slowly followed with the Colonel, who had filled her arms with a gorgeous bouquet of peonies.

The honor guest's face was flushed, but it had been flushed throughout the dinner. Never had she sat down at so well appointed a table, and never had she openly been shown attention by one of the Colonel's social standing. She was excited and happy; she wanted to run and dance, as a flower-laden child might run and dance along a sun-kissed, wooded path!



CHAPTER XIX

THE MERITS OF HORSEFLESH

June hung suspended as ripe fruit. Rains had come. The country was blossoming with a promise of abundant crops. No longer were there breaths of sultry air in shady places. The heavy foliage, fattened by reinvigorated sap and fanned by refreshing breezes, rustled as though it were sprinkling ozone to the ground; and the Colonel complained of exhaustion from the sheer indulgence of joyous deep breathing.

These last two months had brought a settled condition to those at Arden. At first pleasantly aroused by the advent of Dale, they were again comfortably back in their accustomed grooves, while he, also, found a niche which fitted his cosmos with a fair degree of ease. He was at home with them now, and natural; and—when not absorbed with study—talked freely in a slow magnetic way that compelled listeners. The early reticence had given place to the full sway of an enthusiast, and everyone within his orbit felt the influence of a peculiarly strong attraction.

More and more was he surprising them. Merging from obscurity to the light of action, he had developed into a human dynamo, generating power at a high rate of speed and storing it in the dry cells of his brain. Brent accused him of consuming so much of the atmosphere that nothing remained; he said the air seemed lifeless after this absorbing student had passed. He was perilously near done for, he confided to the Colonel, if Dale's mental instrument corralled all the energetic thought waves of Arden, and Miss Liz captured the peace and independence. And the old gentleman had laughed like a boy, because the mountaineer was so generously surpassing Jane's most sanguine hope.

The happiest laugh of all was from Dale, himself—that low, inaudible movement of the throat wherewith he expressed his gayest moods. He had been turned out in the pasture of his heart's desire, and was gathering a harvest with feverish hands. Since the first Monday morning after his arrival, when he crept to the schoolhouse at break of day and waited in the opposite thicket with his long rifle to see if Tusk would come again, the mantle of civilization wrapped quickly about him.

In the succeeding days, the mysteries of spelling and other problems flew like chaff before his irresistible energy. He had struck a gait which created wonderment in all. Hours bounded in no way his efforts. Late afternoons, evenings, and nights, had been devoted to intense study of which he could not tire. Early mornings, before breakfast, had found him poring over a book, and the day's lessons were recited with unerring accuracy while he dressed.

Since school had closed this zeal did not cease; rather did it grow more ardent as Jane gave him her undivided time by especially directing studies apace with his rapid advancement. As she fed, he devoured—as a ravenous animal would have torn its food—and fiercely demanded more. From the blind girl he had acquired, with this thirst for knowledge, a tremendous power of concentration; but, to the regret of those about him, had failed utterly to absorb any of her power of self-sacrifice. That spiritual side—that all important lesson of unselfishness—had never reached him. He was as blind to it as she was to the light of day, and in spite of all Jane could do, or the Colonel could do, his nature closed tighter about the one idea of self-advancement.

For a week after his memorable first day upon the survey, he had rushed to Brent's room each morning at dawn to get the party started; and Brent had good-naturedly submitted. But now the engineer suddenly balked, flatly refusing to take him out again. Miss Liz arose in her wrath, but he told her that he would not risk another day of starvation should this fanatic choose to throw the lunch away—and it was too much work going every day, anyhow. But, the fact of the matter was, Dale had become a serious handicap. He was not content to act as pole-man, or carry the chain. He could have done either of these well enough, because Brent had taught two of the brighter negroes whom he regularly took along. No, Dale must be continually at the transit, looking through it, changing its direction, asking a thousand irrelevant questions, and demoralizing the entire force. So after one week of struggle, Brent told him that he should not come any more until he had at least learned enough to realize how little he knew. It was a disappointment to Jane, but she persuaded Miss Liz not to press the issue, deciding that it might be better in the long run for Dale to proceed more systematically in fundamental things and lay his foundation with greater care.

In the freshness of this June morning he was back again in the library, bent over the pages of a book, and the room seemed quieter for his intensity. Outside, on the shady porch, the Colonel showed indications of reading, but in reality his eyes had slyly turned to the lawn where Zack and Bip were in a heated argument over the respective merits of horseflesh.

An hour before, this sturdy six-year-old heir apparent to the house of Hart, had arrived on his Shetland pony to see Grandfather May—a usual weekly procedure. Along with him, as was also the invariable custom, ponderous Aunt Timmie drove in her buggy—"her" buggy by adoption after it had been discarded by "de white folks." Whenever she climbed into this moth-eaten vehicle, whose wheels pointed outward and inward all at the same time, she never permitted the child to forget that it was her own sweet willingness thus to risk her life which made these excursions possible. She was in the big house now, inspecting every surface and crevice for a particle of dust, contemptuously sniffing and soliloquizing:

"De place is jest nachelly gwine to rack an' ruin! Zack ain' got no moh sense 'bout takin' cyare of a house den a rag-dawl!"

The Shetland pony, meanwhile, was standing at a safe distance from Uncle Zack's mule, looking very wicked indeed with its long forelock hanging frowsily between its eyes, and seeming to have comprehended some of the slanders which this old darky—making a great pretense of being angry—had uttered. To the side, and ready to champion her little friend, stood Mesmie, daughter of Bradford, the overseer, with one bare foot pressing nervously on the instep of its mate, and her fingers twisting the end of her long, golden plait. This was apprehension, not embarrassment. The old negro's pretended anger invariably deceived this little girl—as it frequently puzzled the boy.

"Dar ain' no use talkin'," Uncle Zack stamped the ground. "I'se been waitin' on de May fam'ly fer up'ards of a hund'ed yeahs, an' dis am de fu'st time any of 'em done 'sult me!"

There was a pause while Bip looked at him with wide, serious eyes, and the Colonel from his secluded vantage point silently chuckled.

"I didn't mean to insult you, Uncle Zack," the little boy explained. "I only said that Daniel, here, couldn't have anything to do with such a mis'rable mule. Daniel's a thoroughbred!"

"Thurerbred!" Zack scornfully repeated. "Jes' heah dat! Why, he ain' big 'nough to be no kind o' bred! He ain' got 'nough blood in 'im to call it real breedin'!"

The boy's face flushed. "He's by Shadeland Wildon," he cried, "and out of Hurstbourne Trinket! I'd like to see you find any pony stock better'n that!"

Uncle Zack appeared to ponder over this. As a matter of fact, he had once told Bip this same thing in these very words. Now he temporized by squinting up at the sun.

"An' what's more," the little fellow hotly declared, "they're both registered way back to the war—an' lots before that! Grandfather says if he didn't know Daniel was Daniel, he'd think he was Shadeland Wildon every time I rode him in here—'cause he's got his sire's chestnut an' white markin's to a dot, an' his size to a hair! Now what you got to say 'bout breedin'!"

"'Pears to me," the old fellow soliloquized, still squinting upward, "'twon't be long 'foh lunch time. Didn' I heah somefin 'bout gwine down whar de Willer-de-Wispies lives at?"

"Oh, yes," Bip cried, his anger passing like a bird shadow. "But, Uncle Zack, you've got to ride a horse! I can't have Daniel learnin' laziness from that old mule!"

"Laziness!" the old man exclaimed. Then, all at once, he seemed to be watching something in the trees. "I 'member onct," he began in a ruminating fashion, "when a li'l boy come up to me an' sez: 'Unc Zack,' he sez, 'which is de oldes', ladies or gemmen?'"

He watched the boy with a downward glance from the corner of his eye, but the little fellow maintained a dignified composure. How often did he wish Uncle Zack would forget those questions which now seemed to him a hundred times more infantile by the old man's interpretation! How many times had Uncle Zack prevailed in having his own way by merely referring to them! Now he continued:

"An' onct, when I wuz settin' in mah doh, dis same li'l man come pokin' 'long an' sez, sez he: 'Unc Zack, how-cum you kin see yoh knuckles when yoh fist is shet up tight, an' cyarn' see 'em when yoh han's out straight?'"

"That's one thing you never did tell me," the boy accusingly cried. "You couldn't!"

"I couldn'?" he asked in pained surprise. "Does you mean I couldn'? Why, ain' you 'shamed of yohse'f talkin' dat a-way to ole Zack! I could a-tol' you, spry's yoh please, but it warn't good fer li'l boys jes' den."

"Then tell me now!" Bip challenged.

"How ole is you, honey?" came the irrelevant question.

"I'll be seven next time," he answered.

"Seven nex' time!" The wrinkled face became more wrinkled as he looked out over the fields and began to shake with laughter. "Seven nex' time! What you know 'bout dat!"

"What's funny, Uncle Zack?"

"Jes' dat, dat's all. Come 'long, now, an' we'll git de mule ready!"

"Ain't you going to tell me 'bout my knuckles?" the little boy asked, as they moved to the horse-block where, in deep humility, an old saddle rested.

"Shucks! Dat ain' no fun!" Zack contemptuously asserted. "Knuckles is cu'ious things, knuckles is; an' dar ain' no sense gittin' all riled up 'bout 'em, no way. Didn' I never tell you 'bout de bantam hen dat got her knuckles scyared up wid de water snake?"

"No, you didn't! But tell me first 'bout mine!" The little boy was trotting to keep up now, and the old man lengthened his strides.

"An' didn' I never tell you 'bout de chicken hawk as busted his knuckles all up tryin' to fly off wid de weather-vane down on de stable dar?"

"Oh, no, Uncle Zack! But tell me 'bout mine, first!"

The old negro stopped stock still and looked down with a frown.

"You'se de mos' pestiferistes' pusson on dis heah place!" Then, catching an inspiration, he asked: "Why does you swaller when you'se chawin' a piece of cake?"

"I don't know;—just do. I reckon!"

"Dar now, Mesmie, ain' he a smart li'l man?" the old fellow chuckled. "Dat's de ve'y reason—you jes' do! An' dat's 'zackly what de knuckles does—dey jes' do! Now, since we done relieve ourse'ves on dat pint, le's move 'long!"

Both seemed to have forgotten the discussion on thoroughbreds, but the old negro still pretended to be haughty; and now, slowly approaching the mule which narrowly watched from the corner of his eye, he casually observed:

"De ve'y idee of sayin' mah mule's lazy! Why, he kin nacherly out-run de life outen a li'l sawed-off dumplin' lak one I sees standin' 'round heah!"

This was the touch of spark to powder. The boy thrust his hand deep into his pocket, brought it forth and opened it, then stepped quickly forward: