"The old firebrand!" the engineer was muttering under his breath when Pettigrass reached him; but the foreman cut him short.
"You got mighty little sense, looks like, to me. Stove up any?"
"Nothing to hurt, I guess."
"Well, your hawss is waitin' for ye down yonder at the gate, and I don't b'lieve the Major is allowin' to ask ye to stay to supper."
The railroad man scowled and recovered his dignity, or some portion of it.
"You're a hospitable lot," he said, moving off toward the driveway. "You can tell the old maniac he'll hear from us later."
Pettigrass stooped with his back to the portico and patted the dog.
"Don't you look so shuck up, little one," he whispered reassuringly to Ardea. "There ain't nothin' goin' to happen, worse than has happened, I reckon." But Ardea was mute.
When the engineer had mounted and ridden away down the pike, the foreman straightened himself and faced about. The Major had dropped into his big arm-chair and was trying to relight his pipe. But his hands shook and the match went out.
Pettigrass moved nearer and spoke so that the child should not hear. "If you run me off the place the nex' minute, I'm goin' to tell you you ort to be tolerably 'shamed of yourse'f, Maje' Dabney. That po' little gal is scared out of a year's growin', right now."