teady
races over their uneven surfaces. Then they came out to the track, and
followed along its course, where Ned and Allie joined hands and walked
the rails, and Grant trudged along behind them, stepping with an
elaborate care upon each one of the ties, or leaping over occasional
cattle-guards, as they crossed his path.

They were far past the western houses of the town, and rapidly
approaching the foot of the mountain, when Ned gave Allie's hand a
violent twitch.

"Look back!" he exclaimed in an undertone.

With a little cry of alarm, Allie sprang from the track; then, as she
glanced back over her shoulder, she burst out laughing.

"How you scared me, Ned!" she said, as she stopped abruptly. "I thought
'twas a train, but it's only Dr. Hornblower."

True enough; up the track behind them came the excellent doctor, waving
his cane in amicable salutation, as he strode along at a pace which
might have put to shame the wearer of the famous seven-league boots. His
leathery skin was dark and shining from the violence of his exercise, as
he came sweeping on towards them, till he paused by the side of Louise,
who watched him with some anxiety while he stood wheezing and panting
before her.

"My dear Miss Everett," he said, when he could regain his breath enough
to speak once more; "are you not afraid to walk so rapidly at this
altitude? I fear you may over-exert yourself some day." He paused for a
moment, puffing like the engine of an overloaded freight train; then he
resumed, "I called at your residence, and was so regretful at not
finding you at home that your cousin, Mrs. Pennypoker, told me that you
were bound for the gulch, and assured me that there was--um--some
prospect of my overtaking, not to say catching up with you."

"Are you out on the round-up again to-day, Dr. Hornblower?" asked Ned
soberly.

The Reverend Gabriel looked at him with a perplexed countenance.

"I am afraid that I do not perfectly apprehend your meaning," he said.

"Why, you said, last time you called on Lou, that you were hunting up
stray sheep, and I didn't know but you were out after some more to-day,"
Ned explained, with a naughty satisfaction in his sister's struggles to
repress her smiles.

But Dr. Hornblower was quite unmoved. His professional dignity rose to
the surface, and his voice took on its Sunday twang as he replied
pompously,--

"No, Edward; the sheep are all in the fold. To-day I am only in search
of congenial society