stance they had traversed.

Besides, Patsy's captors did not know they were being pursued. Never
once did the "clash of the spurs" warn them that Care and his horsemen
rode behind.

As the two came down from the high moors, tracking cautiously through
the woods and stray belts of culture which hung about the thatched
steadings and shy, deep-hidden farm-towns, a wildness awoke in Stair
Garland. The little mare, Derry Down, responded to his mood. She held
her head high, and capered like an unbitted yearling fresh off the first
spring pastures.

Louis rode more quietly and also more steadily, and especially so when
at last they got down to a made road in the valley of the White Water.
Here Louis had several times to urge his companion to save the beasts a
little, for if they rescued Patsy, they would need to bring her home on
one or the other of them.

"We have to settle our accounts first," said Stair, "then we will think
about taking her back to those who knew so ill how to protect her!"

He was silent a moment and then added as if in pity for Louis's
ignorance, "See here, man, this is all my country. Think you there is a
farm where I could not leave the ponies and get the loan of other? We
are on the main caravan trail of the Free Traffickers, and there are few
hereabouts who would venture to refuse Stair Garland."

Perhaps there was some boyish pride in this, but Louis had been long
enough within the sound of the jingling anker chains and the creaking
pack saddles to know that Stair spoke well within the truth. He felt
with a sudden pang that in this rescue of Patsy he was playing a very
secondary part. But the true nobility of soul shown by Stair Garland was
not at the time revealed to him. He did not understand the reason why
Stair had brought him at all. It was because he disdained to take an
advantage. He would not magnify himself in Patsy's eyes while Louis,
unwarned, slept in his bed at Castle Raincy.

Whatever the odds against him, Stair would give his adversary the floor,
and at the end of the day accept the umpire's judgment as to which was
the better man.

CHAPTER XII

PATSY'S RESCUE

Like a greyhound coursing sped the little mare. After Derry Down
stretched the more sturdily built Honeypot. He made no flourishes with
head or tail but simply laid well into his work, going so fast that his
rider Louis Raincy seemed to be bending to meet a strong wind. The
hedges and tree clumps poured behi