rsonal pride characteristic
of the mountaineer precluded his feeling a shrinking pain at the
prospect of being presented, a sorry contrast, among the well-clad,
well-to-do town's people, to compete in a public contest. He did not
appreciate the difference--he thought himself as good as the best.

And to-day, complacent enough, he sat upon the rickety fence at home,
oracularly disparaging the equestrian accomplishments of the town's
noted champion.

"I dunno--I dunno," said his young companion doubtfully. "Hackett sets
mighty firm onto his saddle. He's ez straight ez any shingle, an' ez
tough ez a pine-knot. He come up hyar las' summer--war it las' summer,
now? No, 't war summer afore las'--with some o' them other Colbury
folks, a-fox-huntin', an' a-deer-huntin, an' one thing an' 'nother. I
seen 'em a time or two in the woods. An' he kin ride jes' ez good
'mongst the gullies and boulders like ez ef he had been born in the
hills. He ain't a-goin' ter be beat easy."

"It don't make no differ," retorted Jenks Hollis. "He'll never git no
premi-_um_. The certif'cate's good a-plenty fur what ridin' he kin
do."

Doubt was still expressed in the face of the young man, but he said no
more, and, after a short silence, Mr. Hollis, perhaps not relishing
his visitor's want of appreciation, dismounted, so to speak, from the
fence, and slouched off slowly up the road.

Jacob Brice still stood leaning against the rails and whittling his
pine stick, in no wise angered or dismayed by his host's unceremonious
departure, for social etiquette is not very rigid on Old Bear
Mountain. He was a tall athletic fellow, clad in a suit of brown
jeans, which displayed, besides the ornaments of patches, sundry deep
grass stains about the knees. Not that piety induced Brice to spend
much time in the lowly attitude of prayer, unless, indeed, Diana might
be accounted the goddess of his worship. The green juice was pressed
out when kneeling, hidden in some leafy, grassy nook, he heard the
infrequent cry of the wild turkey, or his large, intent blue eyes
caught a glimpse of the stately head of an antlered buck, moving
majestically in the alternate sheen of the sunlight and shadow of the
overhanging crags; or while with his deft hunter's hands he dragged
himself by slow, noiseless degrees through the ferns and tufts of rank
weeds to the water's edge, that he might catch a shot at the feeding
wild duck. A leather belt around his waist supported his powd