The trouble came when he proposed to the General to pay Gordon for his work.

“He is worth no salary at present, sir,” said the General.  “I shall be delighted to have him go with you, and your instruction will more than compensate us.”

The matter was finally settled by Rhodes declining positively to take Gordon except on his own terms.  He needed an axeman and would pay him as such.  He could not take him at all unless he were under his authority.

Mr. Rhodes was not mistaken.  General Keith’s name was one to conjure with.  Squire Rawson was the principal man in all the Ridge region, and he had, as Rhodes knew, put himself on record as unalterably opposed to a railroad.  He was a large, heavy man, deep-chested and big-limbed, with grizzled hair and beard, a mouth closer drawn than might have been expected in one with his surroundings, and eyes that were small and deep-set, but very keen.  His two-storied white house, with wings and portico, though not large, was more pretentious than most of those in the section, and his whitewashed buildings, nestled amid the fruit-trees on a green hill looking up the valley to the Gap, made quite a settlement.  He was a man of considerable property and also of great influence, and in the Ridge region, as elsewhere, wealth is a basis of position and influence.  The difference is one of degree.  The evidences of wealth in the Ridge country were land and cattle, and these Squire Rawson had in abundance.  He was esteemed the best judge of cattle in all that region.

Consistency is a jewel; but there are regions where Hospitality is reckoned before Consistency, and as soon as the old squire learned that General Keith’s son was with the surveying party, even though it was, to use a common phrase, “comin’ interferin’” with that country, he rode over to their camp and invited Gordon and his “friends” to be his guests as long as they should remain in that neighborhood.

“I don’t want you to think, young man,” he said to Rhodes, “that I’m goin’ to agree to your dod-rotted road comin’ through any land of mine, killin’ my cattle; but I’ll give you a bed and somethin’ to eat.”

Rhodes felt that he had gained a victory; Gordon was doubtful.

Though the squire never failed to remind the young engineer that the latter was a Yankee, and as such the natural and necessary enemy of the South, he and Rhodes became great friends, and the squire’s hospitable roof remained the headquarters of the engineering party much longer than there was any necessity for its being so.

The squire’s family consisted of his wife, a kindly, bustling little old dame, who managed everything and everybody, including the squire, with a single exception.  This was her granddaughter, Euphronia Tripper, a plump and fresh young girl with light hair, a fair skin, and bright eyes.  The squire laid down the law to those about him, but Mrs. Rawson—­“Elizy"-laid down the law for him.  This the old fellow was ready enough to admit.  Sometimes he had a comical gleam in his deep eyes when he turned them on his guests as he rose at her call of “Adam, I want you.”