The Call of the Cumberlands

"Thank you!" His manner was stiff. "I hardly think we'd hit it off

together."

"I don't think you quite understand," she argued. "Samson South is

running a clean, creditable race, weighted down with a burdensome

handicap. As a straight-thinking sportsman, if for no better reason, I

should fancy you'd be glad to help him. He has the stamina and

endurance."

"Those," said Horton, who at heart was the fairest and most generous

of men, "are very admirable qualities. Perhaps, I should be more

enthusiastic, Drennie, if you were a little less so."

For the first time since the talk had so narrowly skirted a quarrel,

her eyes twinkled.

"I believe you are jealous!" she announced.

"Of course, I'm jealous," he replied, without evasion. "Possibly, I

might have saved time in the first place by avowing my jealousy. I

hasten now to make amends. I'm green-eyed."

She laid her gloved fingers lightly on his bridle hand.

"Don't be," she advised; "I'm not in love with him. If I were, it

wouldn't matter. He has, "'A neater, sweeter maiden,

"'In a greener, cleaner land.' "He's told me all about her."

Horton shook his head, dubiously.

"I wish to the good Lord, he'd go back to her," he said. "This

Platonic proposition is the doormat over-which two persons walk to

other things. They end by wiping their feet on the Platonic doormat."

"We'll cross that--that imaginary doormat, when we get to it," laughed

the girl. "Meantime, you ought to help me with Samson."

"Thank you, no! I won't help educate my successor. And I won't

abdicate"--his manner of speech grew suddenly tense--"while I can fight

for my foothold."

"I haven't asked you to abdicate. This boy has been here less than a

year. He came absolutely raw--"

"And lit all spraddled out in the police court!" Wilfred prompted.

"And, in less than a year, he has made wonderful advancement; such

advancement as he could not have made but for one thing."

"Which was--that you took him in hand."

"No--which is, that he springs from stock that, despite its hundred

years of lapse into illiteracy, is good stock. Samson South was a

gentleman, Wilfred, two hundred years before he was born."

"That," observed her companion, curtly, "was some time ago."

She tossed her head, impatiently.

"Come," she said, "let's gallop."