at a
rocking canter. "Those are Jim Dandy's! You remember Jim Dandy, Drew?"

"Jim Dandy--?" the other echoed. And then he did recall the little
Englishman who had been a part of the Lexington horse country since long
before the war. Jim Dandy had been one of the most skillful jockeys ever
seen in the blue grass, until he took a bad spill back in '59 and
thereafter set himself up as a consultant trainer-vet to the comfort of
any stable with a hankering to win racing glory.

To a man like Jim Dandy politics or war might not be all-important. And
the fact that he had known the households of both Oak Hill and Red
Springs could count for a better reception now. At least they could try.

"No use you gettin' into anything," Drew told the Texan. "You and Boyd
go on! I'll take Croxton in and see if they'll take care of him."

Kirby looked back down the road. "Don't see no hostile sign heah
'bouts," he drawled. "Guess we can spare us some time to bed him down
proper on th' right range. Maybeso you'll find them in theah as leery of
strangers as a rustler of the sheriff--"

The Texan's references might be obscure, but he helped Drew transfer
Croxton from the precarious balance in the wounded man's own saddle to
Drew's hold, and then rode at a walking pace beside the scout while Boyd
trailed with the led horse.

There was a pounding of hoofs on the road behind. A half dozen riders
went by the mouth of the land at a distance-eating gallop. In spite of
the dust which layered them Drew saw they were not Union.

"Them boys keep that gait up," Kirby remarked, "an' they ain't gonna
make it far 'fore their tongues hang out 'bout three feet an' forty
inches. That ain't no way to waste good hoss flesh."

"Got a good hold on him?" he asked Drew a moment later. At the other's
nod he rode forward into the yard at the end of the lane.

"Hullo, the house!" he called.

A man came out of the stable, walking with a kind of hop-skip step. His
blond head was bare, silver fair in contrast to Boyd's corn yellow, and
his features were thin and sharp. It was Jim Dandy, himself.

"What's all this now?" he asked in that high voice Drew had last heard
discussing the virtues of rival horse liniments at Red Springs. And he
did not look particularly welcoming.

"Mr. Dandy--" Drew walked his horse on, Croxton sagging in his hold, his
weight a heavy pull on his bearer's tired arms--"do you remember me?
Drew Rennie, of Red Springs." He added that quic