o come."

Lounsbury didn't halt to ask him by what justice he should take this
risk--why he should put his own life up as a pawn for their comfort
and safety. Nor did Bill ask himself. Such a thought did not even come
to him. He was their guide, they were in his charge, and he followed
his own law.

"Try it, anyway," Lounsbury urged.

Bill spoke to his horse. The animal still stood with lowered head. For
one of the few times in his life Bill had to speak twice,--not
sharply, if anything more quietly than at first. The the brave Mulvaney
headed into the stream.

As Bill rode into those gray and terrible waters, Virginia's first
instinct was to call him back. The word was in her throat, her lips
parted, but for a single second she hesitated. It was part of the creed
and teachings of the circle in which she moved to put small trust in
instinct. By a false doctrine she had been taught that the deepest
impulses of her heart and soul were to be set aside before the mandates
of convention and society; that she must act a part rather than be
herself. She remembered just in time that this man was not only an
employee, a lowly guide to whom she must not plead in personal appeal.
She had been taught to stifle her natural impulses, and she watched in
silence the water rise about the horse's knees.

But only for a second the silence endured. The the reaction swept her
in a great flood. The generous, kindly warmth of her heart surged
through her in one pulse of the blood; and all those frozen enemies of
her being--caste and pride of place and indifference--were scattered
in an instant. "Oh, come back!" she cried. "Bronson--Bill--come
back. Oh, why did I ever let you go!"

For Bill did not look around. Already the sound of the waters had
obscured the voices on the shore. Again she called, unheard. Then she
lashed her horse with the bridle rein.

The animal strode down into the water. Vosper, his craven soul
whimpering within him, had fallen to the last place in the line, but
Lounsbury tried to seize her saddle as she pushed forward.

"Where are you going, you little fool?" he cried. "Come back."

The girl turned her head. Her face was white. "You told him to go in,"
she replied. "Now--it's the sporting thing--to follow him."

The water splashed about her horse's knees. Lounsbury called again,
commandingly, but she didn't seem to hear. She lifted her feet from the
stirrups as Bill had done before he