The Valiants of Virginia

piling up in the distance, billowy verdure like clumps of trembling jade between, shaded with masses of blue-black shadow, and lazying up and down, by gashed ravine and round

tawny bull that from across a barred fence-corner switched a truculent tail in silence a

son clover that poured and rioted over the roadside: past nests of meditative farm-buildings, fields of baby-green corn, occasional ramshackle dirt-daubed cabins with doorways hung with yellow honeysuckle and flagrant trumpet-vines, and here and th

-but of course it isn't. We'll get to our own bailiwick presently, and wake up. Never mind; we're country gentlemen, Chummy, en route to our estate! No silly snuffle, now! Out with it! That's right,"-as a sharp bark rewarded him-"that's the p

poodle once in a circus that did. But he'd been to college. Think how you could think if you only smoked! We may have to do a lot of thinking, w

e to start," he confessed, half to the dog and half to himself. "To leave anything so sheerly beautiful

surly grunt of remonstrance and after a tentative throb-throb, coughed and stopped dead. Something was wrong. With a sigh he flung off his tweed jacket, donned a sm

es and cursing the obdurate mechanism. Over his right eye an ooze of orange-colored oil glowered and glistened and indefatigably drip-dripped into his shrinking collar. A sharp stone gnawed frenziedly into the small of his back and just as he made a final vicious lun

John Valiant sat up and shook his grimy fist in the air. "You silly loafing idi

very hue of her gray-blue linen walking suit and, in the clear-cut cameo face under her felt cavalry hat, myrtle-blue eyes, that held a smolder of mingled astonishment and indignation. The

. "I didn't see you. I really didn'

. 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 d

ous of his resemblance to an emerging chimney-sweep. "I don't habitually

that seemed to set the whole place aquiver with a musical contagion. They both laughed in conc

ecover. "You did look

us dab at his smudged brow. "The possibilitie

at the steamer-trunk strapped on the carrier and the bulging p

can't decide whether it needs a monkey-wrench or a mustard-plaster. To tell the truth, it has been out of

mile an

e immediate point is my traps. I wonder

dulation, with its slightly questioning accent, charmingly Southern. "There is no li

l be enormously obliged. Oh-and if you see a white dog, don't

d back mo

llows people he

ceptible-of aloofness. "I'm not in the least afraid of dogs."

"Oh, glory!" he muttered. "To begin by shaking your fist at her and end by making

toilet. "What a type!" he said to himself. "Corn-flower eyes and a

russet-brown, in

eep of her fla

lace, laid

metal beyo

eat. "The steel blade in the silk scabbard. With that face in repose she m

e stranded motor, she began to sing a snatch of a cabin song, her vivid red lips framing themselves about the absurd words with a humorous exaggeration of the soft darky pronunciation. Beneath its fun her voice held a haunting dreamy quality, as she sang, sometimes in the blaze of sun, sometimes with leaf-shadows above her through which the light spurted down in green-gilt splashes. Once she stopped suddenly, and crouching down by a tho

g the place with leafy rustlings and whisperings; yet it was so still that when a saffron-barred hornet darted through with an intolerant high-keyed hum, it

comb her hair against a dappled rock. The ground was sparsely covered with gray-blue bushes whose fronds at a little distance blended into a haze till they seemed like billows of smoke suddenly solidified, and here and there

ght her breath as a bulldog frisked ov

es with both arms outstretched. "Oh, you splendid c

; but with ecstatic grunts and growls. "Where did you come from?" she questioned, as his pink tongue struggled desp

oint." Smiling to herself, she pulled one of the roses from her belt, and twisting a wisp of long grass, wound it round and round

little way from her he halted, with a sudden perception of mysterious punishment, shrugged, sat down, a

eproachful glance behi