Instantly the girl showed vivid interest, not, as he had thought she would, in his aunt, Miss Alathea, but in the Colonel from the Bluegrass, who also was a horseman.

“Horseman, is he?” she exclaimed, her eyes alight.

“Yes; he’s famous as a judge of horses.”

“At them races that they tell about?  Oh, I’d like to see one of them races!”

“Yes, he goes to races, everywhere, although he always means to stop immediately after the next one.  It has been the races which have kept him poor and kept him single.”

“How’ve they kept him poor?”

He told her about betting, while she listened, wide-eyed with amazement at the mention of the sums involved.

“How’ve they kept him single?”

“He’s been in love with my Aunt Alathea for a good many years, but she won’t marry him until he keeps his promise to avoid the race-tracks.”

“What makes your aunt hate hawsses?”

“Oh, she loves good horses, but the Colonel always bets, and, as I have said, it keeps him poor.  It’s the gambling that she hates, and not the horses.  Every year he plans to keep away from all horse-racing for her sake; every year he tries to do it, but quite fails.”

She laughed heartily.  “An’ she thinks he loves th’ races more than he does her?” she asked.  Then, more soberly:  “I don’t know’s I blame her, none.  When’s she comin’?  I’ll be powerful glad to see her.”

“I don’t know just when she’s coming, but she’s promised me to have the Colonel bring her up here.  I want to have her see the beauty of the mountains.”

“I’ll like him, sure, whether I like her or not.”

He was astonished.  “But you said you would be sure to love her!”

“Uh-huh; but I’d be surer to like anyone who is as fond of hawsses as you say he is.  Why, when I ride—­”

“I didn’t know you ever rode a horse.  I’ve only seen you on your ox.”

“Poor old Buck!  It’s true, I have been ridin’ him, when I felt lazy, lately, but my pony—­ah, that’s fun!”

“Where is he?”

They had started strolling down the trail and were near the pasture bars, where she had left Joe Lorey on the morning of her bath, after having ridden down to them upon her ox.

She hurried to them, now, and, leaning over them, puckered her red lips and sent a shrill, clear whistle out across the pasture.  Immediately from a thicket-tangle at the far end of the half-cleared lot appeared a shaggy pony, limping wofully, but with ears pricked forward as a sign of welcome to his mistress.

“Come on, Little Hawss!” she called.  “Come on!  It hurts, I know, for you to step, but come on, just th’ same.  I got a turnip for you.”

She turned to Layson with an explanation.  “He’s lame, poor Little Hawss is.  Don’t know’s he’ll ever get all right ag’in.”

“Oh!” said Layson.  “And I didn’t even know you had a horse.”  Horses are less common in the mountains than are oxen, although nearly every mountain farm has one, for riding.  Oxen, though, are the section’s draught-animals.