"Colonel Goff, suh," he said, turning to the Englishman, "that old mare has carried me for fifteen years and never stumped her toe. Her dam carried me through the Valley campaign with Stonewall Jackson. She helped us chase Banks and Fremont out of God’s country. She saved my life once because she could outfoot Yankee cavalry. You were with me and know it. I owe the whole family a debt I can never repay, and suh, I’ll be damned if I don’t hate to kill her colt." Colonel Goff looked over the fence at the colt lying in the grass. Then he said to the negro, aside: "Pull out its legs, my man—there—that will do. Hold them up!" The legs were knuckled over at the ankles, deformed evidently. When it tried to stand it came down limply in a heap. Colonel Goff turned and, beckoning to the negro, whispered: "Jim, take it into the stall there and destroy it without letting the General know." Then he added in a louder tone, "Come, General, we’ll wait till you get your cup of coffee and join us." But the General shook his head. Rough he was and used to war and death, yet this was old Betty’s colt. Goff, knowing his stubbornness, saluted, and rode on after the hounds. The old man stood thinking. He examined the deformed limbs again. Very sternly he looked the colt over. Very sternly he reached his conclusion, and once reached it was irrevocable. Jim, knowing, put in apologetically: "Giner’l, hit’ll never walk, we’ll hafter kill it." "I don’t want to see it done, Jim. I’ll go in. Po’ ole Betty—that she should be played off on like that!" He stroked the mare’s neck with a kindly pat, and went in. Breakfast was ready for him. He sat down, abstracted, worried. Uncle Jack, his grandson, eighteen, slender, and slightly lame, and who didn’t love to talk of the war, nor the thought of going to West Point, and who wanted always to study about trees and a better way of farming, sat next to Little Sister. The General told him of his misfortune. "It is a great disappointment to me, suh, old Betty, my favorite saddle mare—I’ve ridden her for fifteen years—the best mare in Tennessee, by gad, suh, the very best! "It’s weak, puny and no-count, Jack," he went on as he tested his coffee—"deformed or something in its front, and knuckles over, can’t stand up." "That’s too bad," said Uncle Jack; "I’ll go out after breakfast and see what I can do for it, Grandfather." "No use," said the General, gruffly. "It’ll be merciful to destroy it. I’ve told Jim, too; it’ll be better off dead." Little Sister had not seemed to listen, but she had heard. This last remark of her grandsire stopped a spoonful of oatmeal half way to her mouth. The next instant, unobserved, she had slipped from her chair and gone to the barn. "I tell you, Jack, I think this breeding business is a poor lottery," went on the old General after a while. "To think of old Betty, the gamest, speediest, best mare I ever owned—"