ss
this way remember there's a hearty welcome for you at Fairmead."

"I am repaid already, madam," said Heysham as we rode away.

CHAPTER XXII

A RACE WITH TIME

A dreary ride lay before us, for already the afternoon drew toward its
close, and the light drifts were eddying under a bitter wind. The pale sun
was still in the heavens, but a gray dimness crept up from the
grass-land's verge toward it, against which the patches of snow gleamed
lividly. However, I thought little about the cold, for with careless
stupidity I had allowed a swindler to rob my partner, and a succession of
blizzards would not have stopped me then. Heysham, though uninterested,
seemed equally determined, and rode well, so the long miles of grass
rolled behind us. Now a copse of birches flitted past, now a clump of
willows, or the tall reeds of a sloo went down with a great crackling
before us, then there were more swelling levels, for our course was
straight as the crow flies from horizon to horizon, and we turned aside
for no obstacle.

It was dusk when with lowered heads we charged through the scattered
birches of a ravine bluff, and far down in the hollow beneath I caught the
dull gleam of snow-sprinkled ice.

"It's a mean-looking gully," gasped Heysham. "I guess that creek's not
frozen hard, and it's pretty deep. Say, hadn't we better lead our horses?"
and I flung an answer over my shoulder:

"That will just make the difference between catching and missing the
train. I'm going down in the saddle."

"Then of course I'm going too," said Heysham breathlessly. "Your neck is
worth as much as mine is anyway."

For the next few moments I saw nothing at all but the shadowy lines of
birch stems that went reeling past. A branch struck Heysham's horse, and
swerving, it jammed his leg against a tree; then there was a crash as my
own beast, blundering, charged through a thicket where the brittle stems
snapped like pistol-shots, but the salesman was close behind me, and with
a shout of "No bridge for miles. I'll show you the way over," I drove my
horse at the creek.

The quaggy banks were frozen hard now. They were also rough and ploughed
up by the feet of cattle, which had come there to drink before the frost,
and the leap looked horribly dangerous, for I dare not trust the ice; but
the beast got safely off and came down with a great crackling amid thinly
frozen mud and reeds. There was a splash and a flounder behind me, and
then as we