"There's the laziest chap in clothes," he declared. "I don't believe he's done a lick of work since he came—and that's two months ago! Personally, I don't care. He's bully company, and I'm not rabid for that dinky little railroad, anyhow."
"It'll make all the difference to the mountaineers' future," she said.
"Quite right," he agreed, "and cut through my best pasture."
"Not your best pasture, surely!"
"My dear Jane, don't you know that when a railroad kills your cow it's always your best cow? Pastures accordingly! Still," he added with a wry look, "the people's good comes first, doesn't it! That's the proper motto!" And suddenly he began to laugh. "Brent and your new friend up there in the buggy ought to be a combination to keep the Colonel amused for awhile! What do you think?"
She, too, had to laugh. The mental picture of the immaculate, devil-may-care Brent McElroy—sent down in behalf of his father's corporation to develop coal fields, to run a line for the little railroad which Bob had just characterized as "dinky," and otherwise to put into practice college experiences not included in its curriculum—chumming with this new child of nature, threw them again into peals of mirth.
"I wish someone would urge him on faster, anyhow," she said, more seriously now.
"Why don't you try," he suggested.
They had turned into the lane, a mile of cool meanderings that led from the pike to hospitable Arden, and for awhile rode in contemplative silence. Faintly glimmering lights, yellow between the trees, from time to time twinkled a welcome from the classic old house. Through four generations of the Colonel's family this place had stood; occasionally being altered to meet the requirements of comfort, but its stately colonial front and thick brick walls remained intact. And for four generations the neighborhood had looked at it with deep respect.
Valiantly had it held the fortification against encroaching modernism, yet by slow degrees surrendering. A telephone had taken the place of the more picturesque negro on a mule; the rural delivery of mail had made another breach in the walls of seclusion. Only an automobile the Colonel would not essay, declaring himself too much a lover of horseflesh to offend his thoroughbreds with this; but when a touring car occasionally penetrated as far as Arden, it was noticeable that his horses viewed it with less suspicion than their master. Fortunately for the old gentleman's peace of mind such a form of vehicle remained a novelty in this section of Kentucky. The pike out of Buckville was good for a few miles only, and then came almost impassable stretches of unworked roads before connecting with those beautiful highways which wind and interwind through the creamier centers of the State—a condition that did not invite motorists.