"Well now, that's as cool as a cowcumber and twicet as juicy! Gal, ye'r' a brick! ye'r' a knot! Ye'r' a born pacer! Take 'im 'long for all I keer! Take 'im 'long!" He put down his axe, placed his hands against his sides and smiled, as he spoke, a big wrinkling smile that covered the whole of his sallow, skinny face and ran clear down to the neck band of his homespun shirt. "Pluck, no eend to it!" he muttered; "wonder who she is? Poorty--geeroody!" The wild birds sang a triumphant hymn, the breeze freshened till the whole woods rustled, and louder still rose the bubbling of the stream among its bowlders. "Well, I'll jist be dorged! The poortiest gal in all Injianny! An' she's tuck my ole hoss whether or no! She's a knot! Sort o' a cool proceedin', it 'pears to me, but she's orful welcome to the hoss! Howdsomever it's mighty much of a joke on me, 'r my name's not Zach Jones!" He laughed long and loud. The birds laughed, too, and still the wind freshened. The girl and the horse had quickly disappeared behind the hazel and papaw bushes. Zach Jones was alone with his axe and his reflections. "Yender's where she sot--right up yender on that ole clay root. She must 'a' been a fishin', I reckon." Another admiring chuckle. He went to the spot and clambered up among the roots. There lay Rose's sketch book and pencil case. He took up the book and curiously turned the leaves, his eyes running with something like childish delight over the flowers and bits of landscape. He had never before seen a drawing. "Poorty as the gal 'erself, 'most," he said, "an' seein' 'at she's tuck my ole hoss, I spose I'll have to take these 'ere jimcracks o' her'n. I'll take 'em 'long anyhow, jist to 'member her by!" This argument seemed logical and conclusive, and with a quick glance over his shoulder he crammed book and pencil case into the capacious depths of the side pocket of his pants. "Now then it's about time for my chill, an' I'd better go home. Hang the luck; s'pose I'll allus have the ager!" This last sentence was uttered in a tone of comical half despair, and accompanied by a facial contortion possible to no one but a person thoroughly saturated with ague in its chronic form. After he left the dell, Zach had a hot walk across a clover field before he reached the dilapidated log house where he lived with his widowed mother. In a short time his chill set in, and it was a fearful one. His teeth chattered and his bony frame rattled like a bundle of dry sticks in a strong wind. After it had shaken him thus for about an hour, his brother Sammy, a lad of ten years, came in with a jug of buttermilk brought from a neighbor's. "Mammy, 'ere's yer buttermilk," said he, setting the jug on the floor. "Shakin' like forty--a'n't ye, Zach? he added, glancing with a sad, lugubrious smile at his brother; then, changing his tone and also his countenance, he continued, with a broader grin: "Bet ye a dollar ye can't guess what I seed over to 'Squire Martin's!"