Polly replied in an off-hand manner that she was sorry but her card was already full.

Rad shrugged nonchalantly, and sauntering toward the door, disappeared for the rest of the night.

When he turned up at Four-Pools early in the morning, his horse, Uncle Jake informed me, looked as if it had been ridden by "de debbil hisself." With Radnor in this state, and the Colonel growing daily more irritable over the continued mystery of the bonds, it is not strange that matters between them were at a high state of tension.

As I saw more of the Colonel's treatment of Rad, I came to realize that there was considerable excuse for Jefferson's wildness.

While he was a kind man at heart, still he had an ungovernable temper, and an absolutely tyrannical desire to rule every one about him.