CHAPTER XXXIV
A FOX CHASE
It was just dinner time at Pinewood. All the house doors and windows were open, and the sound of the gong reached the ears of a man who was mincing down the avenue. “Ha,” he said stopping short, “the honorable lady will be partaking of some comestibles. It will be advisable that I dally away the time till she shall be lured without by the refreshing delightsomeness of the evening.” And skirting the edge of the lawn and perceiving Joe he made his way down to the sunny slope.
“A handsome day, Mr. Lo,” he said, saluting the Indian, who raised his head to stare at him.
Joe responded by an “Ugh!” and bent again over a small rent in his upturned canoe. After a short silence his curiosity got the better of his reserve, and he said, “Why you call me Lo? I Joe.”
“‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ don’t you know the poetry?” asked MacDaly. “With me it is the generic and epidemic name for the aborigines of this province.”
Joe gave him a sleepy look from his dark eyes in which there was no hint of displeasure. “What you want?” he asked bluntly.
“I am about to enter upon, or in some way engage in a private interview with a certain favorably disposed personage distinguished by many gifts and graces, but whose name I will not take upon my unworthy lips,” said MacDaly; “but what have we here? The honorable Lady Stargarde must be in the vicinity, judging by the appearance of her scout.”
Mascarene, delighted as only a city dog who is kept in a close street can be when removed to open fields, came frisking and jumping down the incline. His frolic over, he fawned on Joe, who was intensely fond of him but scarcely glanced at him, and sniffed in a friendly manner around MacDaly who, while lauding him to the skies as a captivating canine, cared for him not at all.
“What you gottum for Miss Debbiline?” asked Joe of MacDaly, who was pirouetting to and fro to keep out of the way of the dog.
MacDaly, rather taken aback, mumbled that in the event of not seeing the young demoiselle he had a small communication addressed to her that he would be obliged to have some one deliver, and he twirled between his thumb and finger a soiled three-cornered note.