like, to me. Stove up any?"

"Nothing to hurt, I guess."

"Well, your hawss is waitin' for ye down yonder at the gate, and I don't
b'lieve the Major is allowin' to ask ye to stay to supper."

The railroad man scowled and recovered his dignity, or some portion of
it.

"You're a hospitable lot," he said, moving off toward the driveway. "You
can tell the old maniac he'll hear from us later."

Pettigrass stooped with his back to the portico and patted the dog.

"Don't you look so shuck up, little one," he whispered reassuringly to
Ardea. "There ain't nothin' goin' to happen, worse than has happened, I
reckon." But Ardea was mute.

When the engineer had mounted and ridden away down the pike, the foreman
straightened himself and faced about. The Major had dropped into his big
arm-chair and was trying to relight his pipe. But his hands shook and
the match went out.

Pettigrass moved nearer and spoke so that the child should not hear. "If
you run me off the place the nex' minute, I'm goin' to tell you you ort
to be tolerably 'shamed of yourse'f, Maje' Dabney. That po' little gal
is scared out of a year's growin', right now."

"I know, Japheth; I know. I'm a damned old heathen! For, insultin' as he
was, the man was for the time bein' my guest, suh--my guest!"

"I'm talkin' about the little one--not that railroader. So far as I
know, he earned what he got. I allowed they'd make some sort of a swap
with you, so I didn't say anything when they was layin' out their lines
thoo' the hawss-lot and across the lower corn-field this mornin'--easy,
now; no more r'arin' and t'arin' with that thar little gal not a-knowin'
which side o' the earth's goin' to cave in next!"

The Major dropped his pipe, laid fast hold of the arms of his chair, and
breathed hard.

"Laid out _theyuh_ lines--across _my_ prope'ty? Japheth, faveh me by
riding down to the furnace and askin' Caleb Gordon if he will do me the
honor to come up heah--this evenin', if he can. I--I--it's twenty yeahs
and mo' since I've troubled the law cou'ts of ouh po', Yankee-ridden
country with any affai-ah of mine; and now--well, I don't know--I don't
know," with a despondent shake of the leonine head.

After Pettigrass had gone on his errand the Major rose and went
unsteadily into the house. Then, and not till then, Ardea got up on her
knees and put her arms around the neck of the Great Dane.

"O, Hector!" she whispered; "me, I am Dabney, too! Once the gamins
killed a