d
negro angrily. "Do you dare insult a friend and neighbor of Mr. Layson?"

Neb slowly rose and answered with some dignity: "I dares obey Marse
Frank's plain ohduhs, suh. Dat mare represents full twenty-fi' thousan'
dolluhs to him" (Neb rolled the handsome figures lovingly upon his
tongue), "an' dere's thousan's more'll be bet on huh to-morruh." He
looked at Holton with but thinly veiled contempt. "Plenty men 'u'd risk
deir wuthless lives to drug huh."

"Oh, shucks!" said Holton, trying to control his temper because of his
great eagerness to get in to the mare. "She would be safe with me; you
know it."

"I knows Marse Frank hab barred ebery window an' sealed ebery doah but
dis one, an' gib me ohduhs to let no one in 'cept he is by. I stan's by
dem ohduhs while dere's bref in my ol' body."

Holton was infuriated. "It's lucky for you I'm not your master!"

"Dat's what I t'ink, suh."

"If you _was_ my nigger, I'd teach you perliteness with a black-snake
whip! I'll see what Layson'll say to such sass as you've gin me. Jest
you wait till you hear from him."

Neb was not impressed by the man's wrath. "Huhd from him afoah, suh. Oh,
I'll wait, I'll wait."

He went up to the stable-door, unlocked it and stood in the open portal.
Holton would have followed him, but Neb began to close the door.

"You'll wait, too, suh," said the negro, grinning, "on de outside,
suh."

He closed and locked the door on the inside.

Holton was beside himself with wrath. "Damn him! Damn him!" he
exclaimed. "Damn him and damn his proud young puppy of a master! I'll
ruin him! I'll set my foot on him and smash him, yet!"

Baffled, he walked down the drive.

"There's a way," he told himself. "It's bold and risky, but nobody'll
suspicion me. I've kept straight here in the bluegrass. The mountains
and all as ever knowed me thar are far away!"

But all who had known him in the mountains were not as far away as he
supposed. Even as he spoke a dusty, weary figure in worn homespun,
carrying a mammoth bundle, limping sadly upon bruised and blistered
feet, came through the shrubbery, approaching the great stables from the
far side of the big house-lot. Holton looked at this wayfarer with
amazement.

"Madge Brierly!" he cried. "Gal, what are you a-doin' here?"

"Don't know's I've got any call to tell you," Madge replied, almost as
much astonished at the sight of him as he had been at sight of her. Then
she smiled roguishly at him. "Maybe you'l