t you have a bite?"

"No. I want to eat up something worse than pork to-night," and Jarvis
swung into the saddle with the lithe skill acquired from childhood days
on the backs of Blue-Grass thoroughbreds.

"What was dat gun-play, Marse Warren?" asked Rusty, after he had
calculated that they had ridden a respectful distance for inquiries.
Rusty had a certain inherited pride!

Jarvis laughed, and the dull glow of his cigarette tip was discernible.

"Oh, Rusty, why worry over history? Leave that sort of thing to these
'spigotties'--that's all they have to think about over here. It was
just a question of being 'pinked' or 'pinking' a certain gentleman who
was working beyond union hours."

"Huh!" snorted Rusty. "I'll bet de razor I has in my jeans dat he was
moh red dan pink when you-all got finished wid dat cannon o' yourn,
Marse Warren. It runs in de fambly ter shoot straight!"

"Well, Rusty, let's ride straight for a while. We must go up this road
to the turn."

They passed dark cottages, and finally reached the fateful angle of the
road. Rusty groaned apprehensively.

"Say, Marse Warren, I wouldn't mind dis all in de meanest moonshine
district in Kaintuck, but I don't like for to ride in dis yere foreign
district. W'y didn't you-all pick out some place w'ere dey speaks
human talk, instead of dis on-Christian lingo? It don't seem releegious
to me, Marse Warren."

"Rusty, I'm beginning to think you've got a yellow streak in you, with
all this talk about objections. You used to have a name for not even
being afraid of your weight in wildcats," said Warren.

Rusty nodded, as he clung tightly to the saddle, on the increasingly
rough trail.

"Marse Warren, dat was right. But wildcats is purty heavy, an' you-all
can hit 'em with a shotgun. De trouble wid ghosts is dat dey don't
weigh nuffin!"

"Lookout, Rusty. Here's a brook," and suddenly Jarvis' horse stumbled
to its feet, after sliding down a sharp declivity which had been hidden
by the shadows of the big moonlit trees. Rusty was not so
fortunate,--he was rolled off despite his efforts, to receive a
ducking.

Then did his teeth have reason to chatter, as he mounted again to
follow his master up the declivity with dripping clothes.

"Whaffor dey want a crick like dat just below de doors of a castle,
Marse Warren?" he complained.

"That's how they got their water supply--I wouldn't be surprised if the
old place weren't built right on top of that spring. You