A good thing, Dr. Stone thought dryly. Already there were signs of attentions that might turn the head of a young man suddenly independent. Tomorrow there was to be a great party. That was all right—a lad comes of age only once. Bruce Robb had sent up a blooded mare from New York. That was all right, too—Bruce was Allan’s cousin. But all yesterday afternoon cars had come in through the village, traveling fast. Cars that blew imperative horns too obviously. That was the danger to Allen—rich young friends with time on their hands and nothing to do. Ah, well; leave that to Alec Landry. He was a stout man when it came to calling halt.
Dr. Stone swung his legs to the floor. Lady arose from where she had slept, stretched her great muscles, and came toward him.
“Lady,” the doctor said, “suppose we take to the road. There aren’t many good days left. Once winter comes you and I will be more or less chained to the house.”
The deep eyes of the dog clung to his face. Presently, his hand holding the hard handle-grip of Lady’s harness, he listened at Joe Morrow’s bedroom door. His nephew was still asleep. Out on the dirt road Dr. Stone said, “Lady, away,” and they turned north to where Indian summer lingered late in the hills and the valleys were a brown haze. By and by there was wood smoke in the man’s nostrils, and the distant babble of many alien tongues. And, while he wondered about this a woman’s voice, old and weak, quavered at him from the roadside.
“Your fortune, kind master, if it’s safe near the beast and you blind. Cross my palm with silver, and——”
Gypsies! The doctor laughed and shook his gray, lion head. His left hand held to the harness; his right hand swung a light cane. Abruptly the cane lost contact with a field fence and touched nothing. The man said, “Lady, right,” and passed through a pasture gate onto Allan Robb’s land as unerringly as though he could see the gate itself. And the thought that lay in his mind had to do with the gypsy encampment and how long it would be before Alec Landry discovered the trespass and roared the intruders off.
And now, suddenly, the stillness that seemed part of the smoky haze was broken, and the morning was filled with the far-off echoes of a sledge or a pick swung against rock and dirt. The sound, the doctor decided, came from the deep ravine that divided the Robb estate. But when man and dog came to the wooden bridge that spanned the ravine, there was no sound save the gurgle of water running among the sharp rocks far below.
“Hello, down there!” Dr. Stone called.
Silence! Lady stood rigid and a low growl rumbled in her throat. The man, sharpened by an intangible something, touched the alert ears, and the dog was quiet. A wind sighed through the bare branches of the trees, and all at once there was dust and grit in his face. The grit burned like fire. He put up a quick hand and rubbed hot, harsh particles between his fingers. For a time he stood there motionless, startled; and then, slowly, he moved off the bridge with the dog.
An hour later he was back on the dirt road. Horses’ hoofs raced and pounded, and voices shouted and halloed. Lady pulled him out of the way, toward the safety of a hedge, and the young people who had come for Allan’s party thundered past. One pair of hoofs pranced, and one of the riders rode back.