The girl had been glancing from the flushed face to the thistly fence-corner, while the startled dignity of her features warred with an unmistakable tendency to mirth. He could see the little rebellious twitch of the vivid lips, the tell-tale flutter of the eyelids, and the tremor of the gauntleted hand as it drew the hat firmly down over her curling masses of red-bronze. “What hair!” he was saying to himself. “It’s red, but what a red! It has the burnish of hot copper! I never saw such hair!” He had struggled to his feet, nursing his bruised elbow, irritably conscious of his resemblance to an emerging chimney-sweep. “I don’t habitually swear,” he said, “but I’d got to the point when something had to explode.” “Oh,” she said, “don’t mind me!” Then mirth conquered and she broke forth suddenly into a laugh that seemed to set the whole place aquiver with a musical contagion. They both laughed in concert, while the bull pawed the ground and sent forth a rumbling bellow of affront and challenge. She was the first to recover. “You did look so funny!” she gasped. “I can believe it,” he agreed, making a vicious dab at his smudged brow. “The possibilities of a motor for comedy are simply stupendous.” [Pg 54] She came closer and looked curiously at the quiescent monster—at the steamer-trunk strapped on the carrier and the bulging portmanteau peeping over the side of the tonneau. “Is it broken?” “Merely on strike, I imagine. I think it resents the quality of the gasoline I got at Charlottesville. I can’t decide whether it needs a monkey-wrench or a mustard-plaster. To tell the truth, it has been out of commission and I’m not much of an expert, though I can study it out in time. Are we far from the village?” “About a mile and a half.” “I’ll have to have it towed after me. The immediate point is my traps. I wonder if there is likely to be a team passing.” “I’m afraid it’s not too certain,” answered the girl, and now he noted the liquid modulation, with its slightly questioning accent, charmingly Southern. “There is no livery, but there is a negro who meets the train sometimes. I can send him if you like.” “You’re very good,” said Valiant, as she turned away, “and I’ll be enormously obliged. Oh—and if you see a white dog, don’t be frightened if he tries to follow you. He’s perfectly kind.” She looked back momentarily. “He—he always follows people he likes, you see—” “Thank you,” she said. The tone had now a [Pg 55]hint—small, yet perceptible—of aloofness. “I’m not in the least afraid of dogs.” And with a little nod, she swung briskly on up the Red Road. John Valiant stood staring after her till she had passed from view around a curve. “Oh, glory!” he muttered. “To begin by shaking your fist at her and end by making her wonder if you aren’t trying to be fresh! You poor, profane, floundering dolt!”