g
of his head, at which the doctor laughed; for when sleep seized upon
Rumple he was of little use in looking after other people.

Don and Billykins flung up their caps and shouted hurrah as Rockefeller
moved off, and Ducky joined in with her shrill treble, so that Nealie
felt they were doing their very best to keep her spirits up at the
moment of parting, and she could not let them think their efforts were
wasted in the least; therefore she waved her hand and tried to appear as
free from care as the rest of them.

After the heavy wagon, Rockefeller made short work of the light-weight
cart, and went along at such a tremendous pace that Nealie would
certainly have been afraid if anyone but Dr. Plumstead had been driving.
His treatment of Rupert, however, had inspired her with such confidence
in him that she sat smiling and untroubled while the big, clumsy,
vanhorse cut capers in the road, and then danced on all-fours because a
small boy rushed out of one of the little wooden houses on the other
side of the town and blew a blast on a bugle right under the horse's
nose.

"It really looks as if the creature had not had enough work for the last
three or four weeks," said the doctor, with a laugh, as he proceeded to
get pace out of Rocky in preference to pranks.

"It is a very good horse and has done us good service," said Nealie, in
a rather breathless fashion, as a sudden swerve on the part of Rocky
sent her flying against the doctor, and then, as she settled back into
her own corner and clutched at the side of the cart to keep from being
tossed out, she went on in an anxious tone: "I wonder what Mr. Wallis
will say to our keeping Rocky to go this journey instead of at once
handing him over to the nearest agent of the firm?"

"If he is the wise and just man that I take him to be he will say that
you have done quite right," replied the doctor. "You have not reached
your father yet, and you must have the horse for this extra journey,
don't you see?"

Nealie shook her head as if in doubt about this sort of reasoning, and
then she sat silent for so long that the doctor might have believed her
to be asleep, if he had not seen that her gaze was fixed on the
landscape.

The district outside Hammerville on the Mostyn track was at first mainly
composed of rich pasture, mostly settled by dairy farmers, although
farther away on the higher ground it was sheep farming that was most in
evidence.

Twenty miles out of Hammervill