"Don't stay out too long," he had counseled. "My Commencement dinner is
tonight!"

Standing on the terrace he watched them trudge off toward the knobs,
followed by five darkies carrying the lunch, axes, poles and transit. He
noted, also--just as upon that day when Bob first took Dale to Flat
Rock--that the mountaineer was forging ahead, and that his companion was
evidently cautioning less speed.

"A little bit of that will put the road through," he chuckled.

They were crossing a pasture luxuriant with bluegrass where Lucy had
been pensioned to while away in comfort her declining years; and now a
more tender light came into the old gentleman's face. For he saw her
head go up while yet a great way off from them, and saw her intently
looking. He knew what difficulty, and with what yearning, she was urging
her clouded eyes to do their best; and he guessed the exultation
gradually creeping through her frame as she began to realize that Dale
was near. Suddenly, as fast as age would permit, she broke into an
awkward gallop, furiously whinnying, excitedly calling out her delight.
Overtaking her master, who had not been once to see her in all these
days, she thrust her muzzle across his shoulder to be petted, as of
yore--and this deeply affected the Colonel. But the next instant he
stiffened as a man of iron, for the mountaineer, furious at the
interference, had struck her cruelly across the face. In utter
dejection now she stood, looking after him as he strode away.

"Did you see dat?" Uncle Zack cried, and not till then did the Colonel
know he was nearby.

"It wasn't fair! It wasn't fair, Zack! Take her out four quarts of
oats!"

"I don' see whar she's gwine put 'em, wid all dat grass inside her," he
laughed. "If she wuz a man, I'd a-tucken her a toddy 'foh now to cheer
her ole heart! But only de likes of me an' you kin eat ice-cream an' poh
down hot coffee, an' pickle 'em wid licker an' not git ourse'ves
kilt--ain' dat right, Marse John? Hawses an' dawgs an' cows an' sich,
cyarn' put de stuff in dey stumicks dat we kin. It takes a suah-nuff man
to do dat!"

The old gentleman was not listening. To his surprise he now saw Brent
quickly make up the intervening space, grasp Dale by the shoulder and
spin him around with every evidence of tremendous anger, then shake his
fist in the mountaineer's face as though he were emphasizing a speech.
To the Colonel's further astonishment he then saw Dale walk meekly back
to the m