“Colonel Tiffton, this way please,” and Alice spoke in a whisper. “I want Beauty, and I expected—I thought—” here she glanced again up the turnpike, but seeing no one continued, “Couldn’t you bid for me, bid all you would be willing to give if you were bidding for Ellen?”
The colonel looked at her in a kind of dazed, bewildered way, as if not fully comprehending her, till she repeated her request; then mechanically he went back to his post on the balcony, and just as Harney’s last bid was about to receive the final gone, he raised it twenty dollars and ere Harney had time to recover his astonishment, Beauty was disposed of, and the Colonel’s servant Ham led her in triumph back to the stable.
With a fierce scowl of defiance Harney called for Rocket. He had not forgotten that knock-down months before, when Hugh resented the insult offered to Adah Hastings. He had hated him ever since—had sworn to have revenge, and as one mode of taking it, he would secure Rocket at all hazards. Even that morning as he rode past Spring Bank, he had thought with a fiendish exultation, how he would seek the opportunity to provoke to restlessness and then cowhide Rocket in Hugh’s presence as a means of repaying the knock-down! And this was the savage, who, with eager, expectant look upon his visage, stood waiting for Rocket.
Suspecting something wrong the animal refused to come out, and planting his fore feet firmly upon the floor of his stable, kept them all at bay. With a fierce oath, the brutal Harney gave him a stinging blow, which made the tender flesh quiver with pain, but the fiery gleam in the animal’s eye warned him not to repeat it. Suddenly among the excited group of dusky faces he spied that of Claib, and bade him lead out the horse.
“I can’t. Oh, mars’r, for the dear ——” Claib began, but Harney’s riding whip silenced him and he went submissively in to Rocket, who became as gentle beneath his touch as a lamb.
Loud were the cries of admiration which hailed his appearance; and Alice would have known that something important was pending without the colonel’s groan,
“Oh, Rocket! Poor Hugh! It hurts me for the boy more than anything else!”
With one last despairing glance up the still lonely ‘pike Alice hurried to the door, and looked out upon the eager throng. Gathered in a knot around Rocket were all the noted horse-dealers of the country, and conspicuous among them was Harney, his face wearing a most disagreeable expression, as in reply to some remark of one of his companions he said, by way of depreciating Rocket, and thus preventing bids.
“Yes, quite a fancy piece, but ain’t worth a row of pins. Been fed with sugar plums too much. Why, it will take all the gads in Kentucky to break him in.”
The bids were very rapid, for Rocket was popular, but Harney bided his time, standing silently by, with a look on his face of cool contempt for those who presumed to think they could be the fortunate ones. He was prepared to give more than any one else. Nobody would go above his figure, he had set it so high—higher even than Rocket was really worth. Five hundred and fifty, if necessary. No one would rise above that, Harney was sure, and he quietly waited until the bids were far between, and the auctioneer still dwelling upon the last, seemed waiting expectantly for something.