weeks later that Doris Elliot next found herself
upon the scene of her discomfiture. She had ridden from her home three
miles distant very early on a morning of September to join a meeting of
the foxhounds and go cub-hunting. There had been a heavy fall of rain,
and the ground was wet and slippery.

The field that had been all yellow with the shocks of corn was now in
process of being ploughed, and her horse Hector sank up to the fetlocks
at every stride, a fact which he resented with obvious impatience. She
guided him down to the edge of the river where the ground looked a
little harder.

The run was over and she had enjoyed it; but she wanted now to take as
short a cut home as possible, and it was through this particular field
that the most direct route undoubtedly lay. She was alone, but she knew
every inch of the countryside, and but for this mischance of the plough
she would have been well on her way. Being a sportswoman, she made the
best of things, and did her utmost to soothe her mount's somewhat fiery
temper.

"You shall have a clean jump at the end, Hector, old boy," she promised
him. "We shall soon be out of it."

But in this matter also she was to receive a check; for when they came
to the clean jump, it was to find a formidable fence of wooden paling
confronting them, intervening directly in their line of march. It seemed
that the energetic owner had been attending to his boundaries with a
zeal that no huntsman would appreciate.

Doris bit her lip with a murmured "Too bad!"

There was nothing for it but to skirt the hedge in search of a gate.
Hector was naturally even more indignant than she, and stamped and
squealed as she turned him from the obstacle. He also wanted to get
home, and he was tired of fighting his way through ploughed land that
held him like a bog. To add to their discomfort it had begun to rain
again, and there seemed every prospect of being speedily soaked to the
skin.

Altogether the outlook was depressing; but someone was whistling
cheerily on the farther side of the field, and Doris took heart. It was
a long way to the gate, however, and when she reached it at length it
was to find another disappointment in store. The gate was padlocked.

She looked round in desperation. Her only chance of escape was
apparently to return by the way she had come by means of a gap which had
not yet been repaired, and which would lead her in directly the
opposite direction to that which she desi