There was no mistaking the words, and with a muttered curse Harney yelled out his price, all he had meant to give. Again that girlish voice was heard, this time clear and decisive as it added ten to Harney’s five hundred and fifty. Harney knew now who it was that bid against him, for, following the eyes of those around him, he saw her where she stood, her long curls blowing about her fair, flushed face, one little hand resting on the colonel’s shoulder, the other holding together Ellen Tiffton’s crimson scarf, which she had thrown over her black dress to shield her from the cold. There was nothing immodest or unmaidenly in her position, and no one felt that there was. Profound respect and admiration were the only feelings she elicited from the spectators, unless we except the villain Harney, and even he stood gazing at her for a moment, struck with her marvellous beauty, and the look of quiet resolution upon her childish face. Had Alice been told six months before that she would one day mingle conspicuously in a Kentucky horse-sale as the competitor of such a man as Harney, she would have scoffed at the idea, and even now she had no distinct consciousness of what she was doing. Up to the latest possible moment she had watched the distant highway, and when there was no longer hope, had stolen to the colonel’s side, and whispered in his ear what he must say. “It will not do for me,” he replied. “Say it yourself. There’s no impropriety,” and, almost ere she was aware of it, Alice’s voice joined itself with the din which ceased as her distinct “Five Hundred” came ringing through the air. Harney was mad with rage for he knew well for whom that fair Northern girl was interested. He had heard that she was rich—how rich he did not know—but fancied she might possibly be worth a few paltry thousands, and so, of course she was not prepared to compete with him, who counted his gold by hundreds of thousands. Five hundred was all she would give for Rocket. How, then, was he surprised and chagrined when, with a coolness equal to his own, she kept steadily on, scarcely allowing the auctioneer to repeat his bid before she increased it and once, womanlike, raising on her own. “Fie, Harney! Shame to go against a girl! Better give it up, for don’t you see she’s resolved to have him? She’s worth half Massachusetts, too, they say.”