cidedly
commanding.

"I covered a hundred yards to your seventy," Mutineer told the roan
mare. "On a mile track I could go round you twice, without getting out
of breath. I could beat you now, even with double mount easily. But my
Peter has dropped the reins and that puts me on my honor. Good-bye."
Mutineer checked his great racing stride, broke to a canter; dropped to
a trot; altered that to a walk, and stopped.

Peter had been rather astonished at the weight he had lifted. Peter had
never lifted a woman before. His chief experience in the weight of
human-kind had been in wrestling matches at the armory, and only the
largest and most muscular men in the regiment cared to try a bout with
him. Of course Peter knew as a fact that women were lighter than men,
but after bracing himself, much as he would have done to try the
cross-buttock with two hundred pounds of bone and brawn, he marvelled
much at the ease with which he transferred the rider. "She can't weigh
over eighty pounds," he thought. Which was foolish, for the woman
actually weighed one hundred and eighteen, as Peter afterwards learned.

The woman also surprised Peter in another way. Scarcely had she been
placed in front of him, than she put her arms about his neck and buried
her face in his shoulder. She was not crying, but she was drawing her
breath in great gasps in a manner which scared Peter terribly. Peter had
never had a woman cling to him in that way, and frightened as he was,
he made three very interesting discoveries:

1. That a man's shoulder seems planned by nature as a resting place for
a woman's head.

2. That a man's arm about a woman's waist is a very pleasant position
for the arm.

3. That a pair of woman's arms round a man's neck, with the clasped
hands, even if gloved, just resting on the back of his neck, is very
satisfying.

Peter could not see much of the woman. His arm told him that she was
decidedly slender, and he could just catch sight of a small ear and a
cheek, whose roundness proved the youth of the person. Otherwise he
could only see a head of very pretty brown hair, the smooth dressing of
which could not entirely conceal its longing to curl.

When Mutineer stopped, Peter did not quite know what to do. Of course it
was his duty to hold the woman till she recovered herself. That was a
plain duty--and pleasant. Peter said to himself that he really was sorry
for her, and thought his sensations were merely the satisfaction of a