and asked of Dexter Beers another horse to drive to Kingston. But he
refused her, standing before her, blocking the stable door, looking
aside with a kind of timid doggedness. "Can't let ye have another
horse to-day nohow," said he; "too cold to let 'em out."

"I'll pay you well," said Madelon.

"Pay ain't no object. Can't let none of 'em out but the stage-horses
in no sech weather as this." Still Dexter Beers did not look at
Madelon's stern and angry eyes; he gazed intently at a post in an icy
slant of snow in the yard on the left.

He had the usual masculine dread of an angry woman, and, moreover, he
had a sharp-tongued wife, but he had also the masculine tenacity of a
position. He stared at the post as if his spirit held fast to it, and
braced itself against the torrent of feminine wrath which he
expected; but it did not come. Madelon Hautville set her mouth hard,
wrapped her red cloak around her with a firm gesture, as if she were
a soldier about to start on a long march, and walked out of the yard
and up the road without another word.

"I swan!" said Dexter Beers.

The red-faced hostler approached with a pail in each hand bound for
the well; he was watering the coach-horses for the next relay.
"What's up?" he inquired, pushing past him.

"I'll be darned if I don't believe that gal of Hautville's has
started to walk to Kingston, 'cause I wouldn't let her have another
horse!"