the names of his companions,
that he himself was carelessly, and even deprecatingly, alluded to as
the "stranger from Eagle's" by the ostler, and completely overlooked by
the old woman, gave him no concern.

"You'll have to talk to Zenobia yourself. Dod rot ef I'm gine to
interfere. She knows Hennicker's ways, and if she chooses to take in
transients it ain't no funeral o' mine. Zeenie! You, Zeenie! Look yer!"

A tall, lazy-looking, handsome girl appeared on the threshold of the
next room, and with a hand on each door-post slowly swung herself
backwards and forwards, without entering. "Well, Maw?"

The old woman briefly and unalluringly pictured the condition of the
travellers.

"Paw ain't here," began the girl doubtfully, "and--How dy, Dick! is that
you?" The interruption was caused by her recognition of the ostler, and
she lounged into the room. In spite of a skimp, slatternly gown, whose
straight skirt clung to her lower limbs, there was a quaint, nymph-like
contour to her figure. Whether from languor, ill-health, or more
probably from a morbid consciousness of her own height, she moved with
a slightly affected stoop that had become a habit. It did not seem
ungraceful to Hale, already attracted by her delicate profile, her
large dark eyes, and a certain weird resemblance she had to some
half-domesticated dryad.

"That'll do, Maw," she said, dismissing her parent with a nod. "I'll
talk to Dick."

As the door closed on the old woman, Zenobia leaned her hands on
the back of a chair, and confronted the admiring eyes of Dick with a
goddess-like indifference.

"Now wot's the use of your playin' this yer game on me, Dick? Wot's the
good of your ladlin' out that hogwash about huntin'? HUNTIN'! I'll tell
yer the huntin' you-uns hev been at! You've been huntin' George Lee
and his boys since an hour before sun up. You've been followin' a blind
trail up to the Ridge, until the snow got up and hunted YOU right here!
You've been whoopin' and yellin' and circus-ridin' on the roads like
ez yer wos Comanches, and frightening all the women folk within
miles--that's your huntin'! You've been climbin' down Paw's old slide
at last, and makin' tracks for here to save the skins of them condemned
government horses of the Kempany! And THAT'S your huntin'!"

To Hale's surprise, a burst of laughter from the party followed this
speech. He tried to join in, but this ridiculous summary of the result
of his enthusiastic sense of duty lef