a nice eye, a
perfect seat and an unwavering arm and hand! Those knights who looped
back with their pikes thus braceleted had spent long hours in practise
and each rode as naturally as he breathed; yet more than once a horse
shied in mid-course and at the too-eager thrust of the spur bolted
through the ropes. Valiant made his first essay--and missed--with the
blood singing in his ears. The ring flew from his pike, catching him a
swinging blow on the temple in its rebound, but he scarcely felt it.
As he cantered back he heard the major's bass pitting him against the
field, and for a moment again the spot of blue seemed to spread over all
the watching stand.

And then, suddenly, stand and field all vanished. He saw only the long
level rope-lined lane with its twinkling mid-air point. An exhilaration
caught him at the feel of the splendid horse-flesh beneath him--that
sense of oneness with the creature he bestrode which the instinctive
horseman knows. He lifted his lance and hefted it, seeking its absolute
balance, feeling its point as a fencer with his rapier. When again the
blood-red sash streamed away the herald's cry, "Knight of the Crimson
Rose--One!" set the field hand-clapping. From the next joust also,
Valiant returned with the gage upon his lance. Two had gone to the
Champion of Castlewood and two to scattering riders. When Valiant won
his fourth the grand stand thundered with applause.

Katherine Fargo was watching with a gaze that held a curious puzzle.
After that recognition of the White Knight, Judge Chalmers had told in a
few words the story of Damory Court, its ancient history, the unhappy
duel that had sent its owner into a Northern exile, and the son's recent
coming. It had more than surprised her. Her father's appreciative
chuckle that "the young vagabond seemed after all to have fallen on his
feet" had left her strangely silent. She was undergoing a curious mental
bouleversement. Valiant's passionate defense of his father in that
fierce burst of anger in the court room had at first startled her with
its sense of unsuspected force. Later, however, she had come to think it
theatric and overdrawn, and she had heard of his quixotic surrender of
his fortune with a wonder not unmixed with an almost pitying scorn. She
despised eccentricity as much as she respected wealth, and the act had
seemed a ridiculous impulse or a silly affectation, destined to be
repented long and bitterly in cold blood. So she had tho