"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss seeing him too; and then"--he paused for the briefest moment--"there's Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month--I miss them all. It's the rottenest luck." "They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said. He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he laughed. "But I won't--yet. My luck--look here, tell old Japhra this from me; tell him I'm coming back for--he'll understand--the Big Fight, and going to win it!" CHAPTER XI NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA I The great Argentine trip--an affair of so much consequence in its bearing on the development of pony-breeding as to attract the attention of the "Field" in a series of articles that spoke in highest terms of "Messrs. Hannafords' well-known establishment" and of "the far-reaching effects of their new enterprise"--occupied six months. Six weeks--or days--they seemed to Percival as they fled on the novelty and the busy interests that attended him while in South America. Six years he found them on the long voyage home in the steamer that brought him and the purchases from native stock of whose blood "the far-reaching effects" were to be produced; and twice and three times six years he declared to himself he seemed to have been away as, in the closing hours of an April afternoon, the train brought him in sight--at last! at last!--of homeland scenes, of Plowman's Ridge along the eastward sky. Quite a little party was assembled on Great Letham platform to greet him. The Rough 'Uns had driven over in two separate carts--one that should carry him to Aunt Maggie and the other that should bear his luggage--and they were there, their faces to be seen afar like crimson lamps of their excitement, and Mr. Hannaford's leg-and-cane cracks rising high above the din of escaping steam in which the train drew up, and Stingo almost completely voiceless with huskiness for more than an hour back. And Stingo had brought Japhra, arrived at the little horse farm to take up Ima after her winter with Aunt Maggie; and Mr. Hannaford had brought Ima, and they were there--Japhra with his tight mouth twitching, and deep in his puckered face his bright little eyes gleaming; and Ima, standing a shade apart, a tinge of colour crept beneath her skin, and on her lips and in her eyes her gentle smile. To complete the greeting there came shrill, ridiculous chuckles from a stout, soft gentleman, and from his sister little hops and little flutters and "_There_ he is! He'll _hit_ his head leaning out like that! He's _browner_ than ever! Oh, _Percival_!"