Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/98

 "So! this is not difficult."

"And here are the tracks of a horse without a carriage, for part of the time he is walking on the firm sod where he would put a carriage wheel in the ditch." She looked at the naturalist expectantly.

"And is that all?" asked Leyden.

"Yes … that is …."

"It is not enough. You have seen the horse twice and have not noticed the peculiar manner in which he is shod." Leyden's note- was reproving. "This might be any equestrian; myself, I told by a musical note."

Again Virginia laughed, in the eager excited way habitual to her when intensely interested.

"I know! I know! The ring of that heavy silver Spanish bit! I noticed it yesterday; it is like a bell. It must have been that which I heard some time ago when we were passing through the oak grove."

"It was there that I heard it for the first time," said Leyden. "I have a rather unusually accurate musical ear; when Dessalines rode in yesterday to leave you his monograph 'On the Regeneration of a Race,' he had a little difficulty with his horse … By the way, does it not strike you as a trifle odd that the ringing note of that bit should have carried so far to-day; farther even than the sound of the horse's tread, which I much doubt that you heard?"

Virginia frowned and her piquant face became stern. "I know," she answered. "He must have struck the horse across the nose with his crop."

Again Leyden threw her a swift admiring glance. "You are unusual, Miss Moultrie; if you will permit me to say so. I see these things and understand them as 88