as because of Elsie. She was ever such a nice girl, Elsie
Stennis, and I had kept friends with her, steady, ever since she came
to Breckonside from Thorsby. For she is a town girl, Elsie, and her
father and mother are dead. But no nonsense about her--no love and
stuff. She was what they call pretty, too, but not set up about it in
the least, the way girls get. You would have liked her just as I did.
Nearly every one did--except her grandfather.

Well, when I got to Nance Edgar's cottage, which stands back a bit from
the road, with a joiner's yard at one side, and the road to Bewick
stretching away on the other, I saw Elsie at the gable window. She had
a book in her hand, her finger between the leaves. "Come down, Elsie,"
I called up to her. "I'm not going to school to-day. Come and see the
new greenhouses they are building over at Rushworth Court. I can get
you a ride in a dogcart all the way. Our man Jake is going with a
cargo of paint. Father has the order."

But Elsie wouldn't. She said that it was all very well for me, who was
going to be as rich as ever was, to "kip," but that she meant to learn,
even though Mr. Mustard was a brute.

I said that was nonsense, and that I would give her half of all I had.
At any rate I urged her to come down now. And just at that moment as I
was speaking, she pointed over my shoulder. From the gable window she
could see something I could not.

"Do look--what's that?" she cried. And her voice sounded pale.

It was Harry Foster's wagon, and I could see in a minute that something
was wrong. Oh, it was easy to see that, even for a boy. My ears sung
and I felt suddenly old. But by a sort of instinct I got the piebald
pony by the bridle, which was trailing among her forefeet. And I could
see she had been down, too. Her knees showed that. Poor Dappled Bess
never tried to get away. She had terror in her eye, quite like a human
it was. And she seemed to limp with all her feet at once. I was sorry
for Bess. She and I were friends, you see. I used to ride her about
in our pasture on Sundays, to keep her from feeling lonesome.

But it was Elsie who cried out. She had looked inside the mail cart.

"There's blood!" she gasped. "O Joe!"

She didn't faint just when she was needed to do something, though she
did put her hand to her eyes, and, faith, I don't blame her. She came
and said very quietly: "I'll take the horse's head, Joe--you look. I
can't!"

Then I