"Put it away!" she whispered. "We are coming to a house. He won't give any more trouble, I am sure." Mr. Jordano nodded and slipped the pistol into his pocket. Soon after, they came to a crossroad which led by a short cut to the Common and Ross House. Seeing Kitty about to turn aside, Mr. Jordano made as if to accompany her, but she checked him with a decided shake of her head. As he hesitated, she laid her finger on her lips, kissed it toward him with an adorable gesture of gratitude and affection, and, turning, sped away in the gathering dusk. Mr. Jordano looked after her with a sigh; he felt that kiss warm at his heart. He would lay down his life, if necessary, for that sweet young lady. Anger sweeping him again as he turned to the shambling figure before him, he addressed it with asperity. "Come, Wilson! wake up-pup-pup! Step out-tout-tout! You ought to be lighting the lamps this minute." But I ask you, was it not hard that the real "story" which had dropped for him out of a clear sky, as it were, was one that Mr. Jordano's knightly soul could not for an instant think of as matter for publication? What a paragraph it would have made! CHAPTER XIII PILOT "Dear Dan! but you don't think it is anything serious, John?" "Oh, no, Miss Kitty. He'll be fit as a fiddle in two-three days. All I mean, he give himself a little wrinch, like, and I thought let him rest up a day or two, that's all. Anybody has to rest once in a while; any hoss, I would say." "Well!" Kitty gave Dan another lump of sugar. "I believe all he wants is more sugar, John Tucker. Just look at him! You are an angelic humbug, Dan dear, and you aren't to have another scrap. So--you'll take Old Crummles to the station, I suppose, John. And I'll take Madam Flynt with Pilot." Kitty did not look at John Tucker as she said this; they both looked a little conscious. Old Crummles, the third horse, bought by John Tucker (Kitty vowed she would never attempt another horse trade!) was eminently safe and sound, but a trifle dull. Neither Kitty nor John Tucker specially enjoyed driving him. "Yes, Miss!" said John Tucker. "Three o'clock, I suppose." Immediately Kitty's heart began to smite her. "You are as angelic as Dan, John Tucker," she cried. "And I am a selfish Thing! and wicked, too," she added: "I know Madam Flynt is dreadfully afraid of Pilot. She has only driven behind him once, and then she felt that her life hung on the dasher, she told me afterward. So I'll take Old Crummles, John Tucker, dear." But John Tucker was up in arms at once in defense of his favorite.