want to get rid of me!"

He flushed, and turned almost angrily.

"There, I take it back," she said in tones as soft as the night. "It was
horrid! You've been so splendid in giving me a home--although I do
sometimes feel guilty for not being with the Colonel after all he's
done! Yet, were I there, I couldn't give nearly as much time to Bip.
Nothing can--"

"I wish you'd chop that," he growled. "You talk like you're under an
obligation, when you know darn well--"

"I was saying," she looked up brightly, "that nothing can take its
place, not even your suggested slavery; and there isn't a man in the
world whom I wouldn't despise for asking me. I just don't feel a bit
like it!"

"Lord help us!" he cried. "When will D. Cupid, Esquire, discover this
pristine hunting ground? You've a blue ribbon surprise in store for you,
that's all!"

"Perhaps Mr. D. Dawson will spring it," she laughed.

"Or the _blase_ B. McElroy," he suggested.

She made a grimace at this.

Lucy whinnied, and they saw the Colonel and Dale waiting at the bottom
step.

"Come in for awhile," the old gentleman urged.

"Now, Colonel," Bob said reproachfully, "do you know anything of Ann's
temper when under suspense?"

"I see, sir," his eyes wrinkled into a merry smile, "that you're as much
of a nigger about the house over there as I was when she honored me by
living here. Go home to your tyrant, sir, but come over, all of you,
tomorrow for dinner."

Lucy, now free of her burden, crossed to the silent but watchful
mountaineer and nestled her nose in his arm. It was an evidence of
affection which touched them all.

As Bob and Jane were leaving, in the buggy this time, they heard the
Colonel ask Uncle Zack if Mr. McElroy were home, and that old darky of
diminutive stature answer:

"No, sah, Cunnel, he done rid off harf hour ago."

"Maybe," Jane presently suggested, when they were well on their way,
"he's gone over to our house!"

"Maybe," Bob replied, wondering where of late the young engineer had
been spending his evenings.

"Do you know," she said irrelevantly, after a silence of several
minutes, "I believe a man in whom animals show implicit faith is to be
trusted."

"In this particular case, perhaps," he agreed, for it just so happened
that he, too, now was thinking of Dale. "Yet old Tom Hewlet has a lot of
dogs which fawn all over him!"

"That's so," she acquiesced, and both again fell silent.

CHAPTER V

AN INTERRUPTED BRE