“Do you want money?” he said, before he left him. Dick told him the secret of his golden belt. “Where shall I send your trunk after you from your uncle's?” Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town to which he himself was going, to take passage for a port in South America. “Good-bye, Richard,” said the Doctor. “Try to learn something from to-night's lesson.” The Southern impulses in Dick's wild blood overcame him, and he kissed the old Doctor on both cheeks, crying as only the children of the sun can cry, after the first hours in the dewy morning of life. So Dick Venner disappears from this story. An hour after dawn, Cassia pointed her fine ears homeward, and struck into her square, honest trot, as if she had not been doing anything more than her duty during her four hours' stretch of the last night. Abel was not in the habit of questioning the Doctor's decisions. “It's all right,” he said to Mr. Bernard. “The fellah 's Squire Venner's relation, anyhaow. Don't you want to wait here, jest a little while, till I come back? The's a consid'able nice saddle 'n' bridle on a dead boss that's layin' daown there in the road 'n' I guess the' a'n't no use in lettin' on 'em spite,--so I'll jest step aout 'n' fetch 'em along. I kind o' calc'late 't won't pay to take the cretur's shoes 'n' hide off to-night,--'n' the' won't be much iron on that hose's huffs an haour after daylight, I'll bate ye a quarter.” “I'll walk along with you,” said Mr. Bernard; “I feel as if I could get along well enough now.” So they set off together. There was a little crowd round the dead mustang already, principally consisting of neighbors who had adjourned from the Doctor's house to see the scene of the late adventure. In addition to these, however, the assembly was honored by the presence of Mr. Principal Silas Peckham, who had been called from his slumbers by a message that Master Langdon was shot through the head by a highway-robber, but had learned a true version of the story by this time. His voice was at that moment heard above the rest,--sharp, but thin, like bad cider-vinegar. “I take charge of that property, I say. Master Langdon 's actin' under my orders, and I claim that hoss and all that's on him. Hiram! jest slip off that saddle and bridle, and carry 'em up to the Institoot, and bring down a pair of pinchers and a file,--and--stop--fetch a pair of shears, too; there's hosshair enough in that mane and tail to stuff a bolster with.” “You let that hoss alone!” spoke up Colonel Sprowle. “When a fellah goes out huntin' and shoots a squirrel, do you think he's go'n' to let another fellah pick him up and kerry him off? Not if he's got a double-berril gun, and t'other berril ha'n't been fired off yet! I should like to see the mahn that'll take off that seddle 'n' bridle, excep' the one th't hez a fair right to the whole concern!”