"I'll never forgit how the night looked as I rode over after her, how the wild-flowers smelt, an' the fresh dew on the leaves. I remember that I even heard a mockin'-bird wake up about midnight as I tied my hoss to a lim' in the orchard nearby, an' slipped aroun' to meet Kathleen at the bars behin' the house. It was a half mile to the house an' I was slippin' through the sugar-maple trees along the path we'd both walked so often befo' when I saw what I thought was Kathleen comin' towards me. I ran to meet her. It wa'n't Kathleen, but her mother--an' she told me to git in a hurry, that the old man knew all, had locked Kathleen up in the kitchen, turned the brindle dog loose in the yard, an' was hidin' in the woods nigh the barn, with his gun loaded with bird-shot, an' that if I went any further the chances were I'd not sit down agin for a year. She had slipped around through the woods just to warn me. "Of course I wanted to fight an' take her anyway--kill the dog an' the old man, storm the kitchen an' run off with Kathleen in my arms as they do in novels. But the old lady said she didn't want the dog hurt--it being a valuable coon-dog,--and that I was to go away out of the county an' wait for a better time. "It mighty nigh broke me up, but I decided the old lady was right an' I'd go away. But 'long towards the shank of the night, after I had put up my hoss, the moon was still shinin', an' I cudn't sleep for thinkin' of Kathleen. I stole afoot over to her house just to look at her window. The house was all quiet an' even the brindle dog was asleep. I threw kisses at her bed-room window, but even then I cudn't go away, so I slipped around to the barn and laid down in the hay to think over my hard luck. My heart ached an' burned an' I was nigh dead with love. "I wondered if I'd ever get her, if they'd wean her from me, an' give her to the rich little feller whose fine farm j'ined the old man's an' who the old man was wuckin' fur--whether the two wouldn't over-persuade her whilst I was gone. For I'd made up my mind I'd go befo' daylight--that there wasn't anything else for me to do. "I was layin' in the hay, an' boylike, the tears was rollin' down. If I c'ud only kiss her han' befo' I left--if I c'ud only see her face at the winder! "I must have sobbed out loud, for jus' then I heard a gentle, sympathetic whinny an' a cold, inquisitive little muzzle was thrust into my face, as I lay on my back with my heart nearly busted. It was Kathleena, an' I rubbed my hot face against her cool cheek--for it seemed so human of her to come an' try to console me, an' I put my arms around her neck an' kissed her silky mane an' imagined it was Kathleen's hair. "Oh, I was heart-broke an' silly. "Then all at onct a thought came to me, an' I slipped the bridle an' saddle on her an' led her out at the back door, an' I scratched this on a slip of paper an' stuck it on the barn do': "'_To old man Galloway:_