mate that could be
in horsedom.

While they were circling around Joe confabbing, Chris climbed into
the Deputy's auto and threw the power full on. The men heard a
monster puffing and a shriek from the lad, and sprang out too late.
The big auto shot away, luckily taking a straight course down the
street. The boy knew nothing of its machinery; he sat clutching the
cushions and howling. With the power on nothing could have stopped
that auto except a brick house, and there was nothing for Chris to
gain by such a stoppage.

Demetre Svangvsk was just coming in again with a grin for another
kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others
sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the
horse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like
the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore that
Joe answered him back in the same language. Ten seconds after the
auto started the big horse was eating up the asphalt behind it like
a strip of macaroni.

Some people two blocks and a half away saw the rescue. They said
that the auto was nothing but a drab noise with a black speck in the
middle of it for Chris, when a big bay horse with a lizard lying on
its back cantered up alongside of it, and the lizard reached over
and picked the black speck out of the noise.

Only fifteen minutes after Svangvsk's last kicking at the hands--or
rather the feet--of Engine Company No. 99 he rode Joe back through
the door with the boy safe, but acutely conscious of the licking he
was going to receive.

Svangvsk slipped to the floor, leaned his head against Joe's and
made a noise like a clucking hen. Joe nodded and whistled loudly
through his nostrils, putting to shame the knowledge of Sloviski,
of the delicatessen.

John Byrnes walked up to Svangvsk, who grinned, expecting to be
kicked. Byrnes gripped the outlander so strongly by the hand that
Demetre grinned anyhow, conceiving it to be a new form of
punishment.

"The heathen rides like a Cossack," remarked a fireman who had seen
a Wild West show--"they're the greatest riders in the world."

The word seemed to electrify Svangvsk. He grinned wider than ever.

"Yas--yas--me Cossack," he spluttered, striking his chest.

"Cossack!" repeated John Byrnes, thoughtfully, "ain't that a kind of
a Russian?"

"They're one of the Russian tribes, sure," said the desk man, who
read books between fire alarms.

Just then Alderman Foley, who was on h