de-brimmed Southern hat, typical long frock-coat with flaring skirts,
black trousers, somewhat pegged, and boots of an immaculate brilliance.

His voice was loud, hearty and attractive, as he made inquiries, here
and there, about the young man whom they had hoped to find in waiting
for them at the station, although they had arrived, owing to the
exigencies of travel by a new road, not yet officially opened to
traffic, a day before they had expected to.

"I suh," said this gentleman, "am Cunnel Doolittle--Cunnel Sandusky
Doolittle, and am looking for this lady's nephew, Mr. Layson, suh. If
you can tell me where the youngster is likely to be runnin', now, you
will put me under obligations, suh."

None, however, knew just how Layson could be reached. Most of them knew
him or had heard of him, but they were not certain just where his camp
in the mountains was located.

"I regret, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel, turning to the disappointed
lady at his side, after having completed his inquiries, "that there is
no good hotel heah. If there were a good hotel heah, I would take you to
it, ma'am, and make you comfortable. Then, ma'am, I would search this
country and I'd find him in short order. He probably did not receive my
letter saying that we would arrive to-day and not to-morrow."

One of the engineers proffered to the ladies the use of his own canvas
quarters till some course of action should have been decided on, an
offer which was gratefully accepted.

Soon afterward inquiries by the Colonel brought out definite information
as to the exact location of Frank's camp. A railway teamster, also, it
appeared, was starting in that direction after ties and offered to
transport a messenger as far as he was going, directing him, then, so
that he could not lose his way. Old Neb, the darky, thereupon, was
started on the search.

He was a different sort of negro from any which the mountain folk had
ever seen, and wore more airs than his "white folks." Dressed in a black
frock-coat as ornate as the Colonel's, although its bagging shoulders
showed that it had been a gift and not made for him, his hat was a silk
tile, a bit too large, and in one hand was a gold-headed cane on which
he leaned as his old legs limped under him. Among the mountaineers about
he was an object of the keenest curiosity, although down in the
bluegrass, where old family negroes frequently were let to grow into a
childish dignity of manner after years of fai