back!"

"Have you any idea where he is?"

"Only he said he an' Tusk Potter were goin' in the mountains after
ginseng. They go most every yeah. You can't guess the peace there's been
at home this last month, Miss Jane!"

"I think I can," she murmured. "Nancy, suppose you were to work hard on
those sums, and be more careful in the way you speak, and the school
should grow enough for you to be my assistant, and Mr. McElroy should
run his railroad through your house--where would Tom Hewlet and his
wife go? Would they stay around here?"

"What a bully fairy-tale," the girl delightedly clasped one of Jane's
hands. "No'm, I reckon he'd go out to Missouri an' live with his
brother. He's always wantin' to. Why, Miss Jane? Is there any chance of
all that?"

"I don't know, Nan. Maybe I was just dreaming."

"Then dream some more," she murmured.

The morning had worn on without a bell for recess. The room had become
restive, and now Jane realized that the youngest of the Owsleys was
lustily bawling. She glanced at the little watch in her belt, crying:
"Heavens!" Then dashed toward the door to rescue her neglected charges;
leaving Nancy under the trees to patch up the interrupted dream.

CHAPTER XVII

AT TOP SPEED

Brent had at one time promised Dale to take him out on the survey. This
promise had been made in an unguarded moment--or, at least, without a
suspicion that the mountaineer would keep so tenaciously after him until
it was fulfilled. Now, with school closed the day before, he felt that
the evil hour could no longer be postponed. He had no objection to Dale,
or having him along on the work, if he would only take some recesses in
his interminable string of questions. But this impetuous student, whose
soul craved the heights of Lincoln and Clay, took no recesses.

Petulantly Brent had carried his woe to the Colonel, but, instead of
sympathy, he found the old gentleman radiant;--declaring Dale would
become so utterly absorbed in learning the secrets of this science, that
the engineer would find himself being led out by the ears each morning
at sunrise.

"The road is just as good as built," he had cried, "if you have along
Dale's example of application!" Which comforted Brent not at all.

So this very morning the Colonel was astir long before breakfast,
sharing in a measure the mountaineer's excitement. Anything, he had
jovially averred, which inspired Brent to work, was worth getting up
early to see.