Certainly Mrs. Dumble was a woman of silence,
secretive, with lips tightly compressed, as if--as Ajax remarked--she
feared that some of John Jacob's peccadilloes might escape from them.
The father was inordinately proud of his son, Quincey, who in many
respects took after the mother. He, too, was quiet, self-possessed,
and somewhat pale. He worked for us and other cattlemen, not for his
father, and after the lad left school Ajax fell to speculating about
him, as he speculated about the mother.
"Is Quincey on to the old man's games?" he would ask.
It must be recorded that John Jacob was very careful to keep within
the limits of the law, but he ploughed close to the line, where the
soil, as we all know, is richest and, comparatively speaking, virgin.
But no man in the county was louder than he in denouncing such crimes
as horse-stealing or cattle-lifting, crimes in those days
disgracefully common. He might ear-mark a wandering piglet, for
instance, or clap his iron upon an unbranded yearling; but who could
swear that these estrays were not the lawful property of him upon
whose land they were found?
At that time Ajax and I were breeding Cleveland Bays, and amongst our
colts we had two very promising animals likely to make a match team,
and already prize-winners at the annual county fair.
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