and made her grow quite pale with the old terror of giving him offence.  Her hair looked different, her clothes were different, she wore gloves, and she had a stick in one hand with a head like a cane and a loop of leather at the other end.  For these drawbacks, the old light in her eyes and face quite failed to make up, for while Jason looked, Mavis was looking, too, and the boy saw her eyes travelling him down from head to foot:  somehow he was reminded of the way Marjorie had looked at him back in the mountains and somehow he felt that the change that he resented in Mavis went deeper than her clothes.  The morbidly sensitive spirit of the mountaineer in him was hurt, the chasm yawned instead of closing, and all he said shortly was: 

“Whar’d you git them new-fangled things?”

“Marjorie give ’em to me.  She said fer you to bring yo’ hoss in—­ hit’s more fun than I ever knowed in my life up here.”

“Hit is?” he half-sneered.  “Well, you git back to yo’ high-falutin’ friends an’ tell ’em I don’t hunt nothin’ that-a-way.”

“I’ll stop right now an’ go home with ye.  I guess you’ve come to see yo’ mammy.”

“Well, I hain’t ridin’ aroun’ just fer my health exactly.”

He had suddenly risen on the fence as the cries in the field swelled in a chorus.  Mavis saw how strong the temptation within him was, and so, when he repeated for her to “go on back,” the old habit of obedience turned her, but she knew he would soon follow.

The field was going mad now, horses were dashing and crashing together, the men were swinging to the ground and were pushed and trampled in a wild clutch for Mollie’s long ears, and Jason could see that the contest between them was who should get the most game.  The big mule was threshing the weeds like a tornado, and crossing the field at a heavy gallop he stopped suddenly at a ditch, the girth broke, and the colonel went over the long ears.  There was a shriek of laughter, in which Jason from his perch joined, as with a bray of freedom the mule made for home.  Apparently that field was hunted out now, and when the hunters crossed another pike and went into another field too far away for the boy to see the fun, he mounted his old mare and rode slowly after them.  A little later Mavis heard a familiar yell, and Jason flew by her with his pistol flopping on his hip, his hat in his hand, and his face frenzied and gone wild.  The thoroughbred passed him like a swallow, but the rabbit twisted back on his trail and Mavis saw Marjorie leap lightly from her saddle, Jason flung himself from his, and then both were hidden by the crush of horses around them, while from the midst rose sharp cries of warning and fear.

She saw Gray’s face white with terror, and then she saw Marjorie picking herself up from the ground and Jason swaying dizzily on his feet with a rabbit in his hand.

“’Tain’t nothin’,” he said stoutly, and he grinned his admiration openly for Marjorie, who looked such anxiety for him.  “You ain’t afeerd o’ nothin’, air ye, an’ I reckon this rabbit tail is a-goin’ to you,” and he handed it to her and turned to his horse.  The boy had jerked Marjorie from under the thoroughbred’s hoofs and then gone on recklessly after the rabbit, getting a glancing blow from one of those hoofs himself.