“Enter the field, Miss Ayr of Virginia,” said Jim Stafford. “Only explain your method of procedure, and I’m your backer. What do you propose to do?” And with the arrant childishness of the average pleasure-seeker all the men present became absorbed in this incident, which offered a new and unexpected diversion. All the women, meantime, were looking at the young Southern girl with cold disapprobation. “Now, Miss Ayr of Virginia,” said Jim Stafford, “give your orders. How do you propose to do it?” “Could we possibly get some mud from anywhere?” asked Carter. “Mud? not likely, in this dust!” said one man, but Stafford cut him short. “Mud? Of course. Nothing simpler!” he said. “Here, Trollope, get a bottle of Apollinaris out of the lunch-basket and break it in the road;” and as the groom flew to comply with his order he turned to Carter. “We’ll have the mud in a jiffy,” he said. “Now, what’s to be done with it?” “Stop the ox’s nostrils with it,” Carter decreed next. The young dudes on the coach gave a little “Hooray!” and in a moment they were down in the road, stirring the fizzing water into the yellow dust with their canes, with all the glee of children at a new game. The mixture was soon turned into a stiff mud, and the immaculate Trollope was ordered to fill his hands with it and follow his master. Every eye was fixed on Jim Stafford, as he approached the man who had the ox in charge and ask permission to try his experiment. Carter, left on the coach with the women, who she felt, instinctively, were not the friendly element of the party, watched with a confidence not unmixed with anxiety. How could she tell that these Yankee oxen would respond to Virginia treatment? And if they did not, where would she hide her humiliated head? She realized that, like many another act of daring, its only justification would be in its success. “Stop up both nostrils at once, and hold it in,” she called to Trollope, in her pretty, low voice. The crowd made way for the groom and his master to approach, and the performance was quickly accomplished. The next instant, there was a heaving and panting on the part of the ox, and, with a frantic motion of consternation, it had scrambled to its feet, and stood there snorting out the mud and shaking its great head from side to side. The man in charge of it caught hold of its harness, and without the least difficulty, led it away. The road was open. “Three times three for Miss Ayr of Virginia!” cried Jim Stafford, and his companions, imitating him, waved their hats around their heads and echoed his words. It was not loud enough to be positively rowdy, but it was too loud, it seemed, to suit Mrs. Emory’s sense of decorum, for she was heard to say rather severely: “Really, Jim, if you ask me to chaperon your parties, I must insist upon decent behavior. This is unbearable!” and she turned upon poor little Carter a glance that was meant to be perfectly annihilating.