these
new-fangled automobiles are turning the world upside down--and many a
buggy with it. They're just numerous enough to be dangerous. If there
were more or less they would be all right, but just now every horse is
suspicious of them. Well--as I saw you driving in here I said to
myself, 'There's the man for that job of mine, if I can get him,' but
I'm not rich, and I couldn't pay you regular wages. But if I could
square the account by helping with your studies a couple of nights a
week--I used to teach school, and haven't altogether forgotten--why,
that would be just what I want. What do you say?"

"I never saw anything on four feet I couldn't drive," said Dave, "an'
if you're willing to take a chance, I am. When do we start?"

"First lesson to-night. Second lesson Thursday night. First drive
Sunday." Mr. Duncan did not explain that he wanted to know the boy
better before the drives were commenced, and he felt that two nights
together would satisfy him whether he had found the right man.

Dave hurried back to the coal-yard and completed the day's work in high
spirits. It seemed he was at last started on a road that might lead
somewhere. After supper he surprised his fellow labourers by changing
to his Sunday clothes and starting down a street leading into the
residential part of the town. There were speculations that he had
"seen a skirt."

Mr. Duncan met him at the door and showed him into the living-room.
Mrs. Duncan, plump, motherly, lovable in the mature womanliness of
forty, greeted him cordially. She was sorry Edith was out; Edith had a
tennis engagement. She was apparently deeply interested in the young
man who was to be her coachman. Dave had never been in a home like
this, and his eyes, unaccustomed to comfortable furnishings, appraised
them as luxury. There were a piano and a phonograph; leather chairs; a
fireplace with polished bricks that shone with the glow of burning
coal; thick carpets, springy to the foot; painted pictures looking down
out of gilt frames. And Mr. Duncan had said he was not rich! And
there was more than that; there was an air, a spirit, an atmosphere
that Dave could feel although he could not define it; a sense that
everything was all right. He soon found himself talking with Mrs.
Duncan about horses, and then about his old life on the ranch, and then
about coming to town. Almost, before he knew it, he had told her about
Reenie Hardy, but he had checked himself i