ight and away. Don't send me from
you, sir, as you took mercy on me once!"

Rake's voice shook a little toward the close of his harangue, and in
the shadows of evening light, as the train plunged through the gathering
gloom, his ruddy, bright, bronzed face looked very pale and wistful.

Cecil stretched out his hand to him in silence that spoke better than
words.

Rank hung his head.

"No, sir; you're a gentleman, and I've been an awful scamp! It's enough
honor for me that you would do it. When I'm more worth it, perhaps--but
that won't never be."

"You are worth it now, my gallant fellow." His voice was very low; the
man's loyalty touched him keenly. "It was only for yourself, Rake, that
I ever wished you to leave me."

"God bless you, sir!" said Rake passionately; "them words are better
nor ten tosses of brandy! You see, sir, I'm so spry and happy in a wild
life, I am, and if so be as you go to them American parts as you spoke
on, why I know 'em just as well as I know Newmarket Heath, every bit!
They're terrible rips in them parts; kill you as soon as look at you; it
makes things uncommon larky out there, uncommon spicy. You aren't never
sure but what there's a bowie knife a-waiting for you."

With which view of the delights of Western life, Rake, "feeling like
a fool," as he thought himself, for which reason he had diverged into
Argentine memories, applied himself to the touching and examining of the
rifle with that tenderness which only gunnery love and lore produce.

Cecil sat silent a while, his head drooped down on his hands, while the
evening deepened to night. At last he looked up.

"The King? Where is he?"

Rake flushed shamefacedly under his tanned skin.

"Beggin' your pardon, sir; behind you."

"Behind me?"

"Yes, sir; him and the brown mare. I couldn't do nothing else with 'em
you see, sir, so I shipped him along with us; they don't care for the
train a bit, bless their hearts! And I've got a sharp boy a-minding
of 'em. You can easily send 'em on to England from Paris if you're
determined to part with 'em; but you know the King always was fond of
drums and trumpets and that like. You remember, sir, when he as a colt
we broke him into it and taught him a bit of maneuvering; 'cause, till
you find what pace he had in him, you'd thought of making a charger of
him. He loves the noise of soldiering--he do; and if he thought you was
going away without him, he'd break his heart, Mr. Cecil, sir. It wa