Nothing further occurred for a little to afflict the traveler's unaccustomed nerves, and he soon found himself pleasurably absorbed in contemplation of the novel surroundings. The boat was nearing the Norfolk landing when his eyes fell on a dog, held in leash by a young woman. Both the beast and its mistress commanded his instant attention, in which wonder was the chief emotion. The dog itself was a Boston bull-terrier, which was a canine species wholly strange to the mountaineer's experience, limited as it had been to hounds and mongrels of unanalyzable genealogy. The brute's face had an uncanny likeness to a snub-nosed, heavy-jowled "boomer" whom Zeke detested, and he eyed the creature askance by reason of the resemblance. "Hit's plumb man-faced," was his verdict. "I shore prefer 'em jest plain dawg." His eyes went then from the leash to the girl holding it, and he hardly restrained a gasp, in which admiration was mingled with amazement. The ordinary observer would have seen only a pretty girl, of the fluffy blond type, smartly tailored in blue serge, with the skirt decorously slit. But Zeke saw a vision from another world than that of the slatternly mountain women, whose toil left them neither opportunity nor ambition for nicety in dress, which, indeed, was finally prohibited by ignorance as well as poverty. This girl stood out in startling relief, marvelous revelation from the new world he was entering. Slowly, with concentration, the young man scrutinized the vision, noting every detail, from the natty turban with its swaying feather wand to the daintily pointed ties, above which were to be glimpsed trim silk-clad ankles. Yet, the novel charm of her failed utterly to disturb the loyalty of his heart. His hungry soul found exquisite satisfaction in the spectacle of feminine refinement thus presented for the first time, but his devotion to the roughly garbed mountain girl was in no wise imperiled. On the contrary, his imagination busied itself with an effort to picture Plutina thus splendidly arrayed. "I 'low she's plumb handsome," he meditated. "But, shucks! Tiny beats her holler. In them duds, she'd have her skun a mile.... But thet-thar man-faced dawg! I'd shore hate like pizen to be found daid along with thet ornery pup." As he mused, no hint came out of the future as to the time when, in very truth, he would be close to death, and that same dog an actor in the drama, one to be deeply esteemed, not contemned. But that time was not yet. In fact, the immediate future was not destined to remove his prejudice against the bull-terrier. On the contrary!