as Rox, his knees bowing from under him, slowly collapsed. Then he
rolled upon the shaft that snapped under him, and the cart vibrated from
end to end as a long, shuddering tremble ran through him with his last
deep breath.

V.

When Lloyd at length managed to free herself and jump to the ground
Bennett came quickly toward her and drew her away to the side of the
road.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded. "Tell me, are you hurt?"

"No, no; not in the least."

"Why in the world did you want to drive such a horse? Don't ever take
such chances again. I won't have it."

For a few moments Lloyd was too excited to trust herself to talk, and
could only stand helplessly to one side, watching Bennett as he stripped
off the harness from the dead horse, stowed it away under the seat of
the cart, and rolled the cart itself to the edge of the road. Then at
length she said, trying to smile and to steady her voice:

"It--it seems to me, Mr. Bennett, you do about--about as you like with
my sta-bub-ble."

"Sit down!" he commanded, "you are trembling all over. Sit down on that
rock there."

"--and with me," she added, sinking down upon the boulder he had
indicated with a movement of his head, his hands busy with the harness.

"I'm sorry I had to do that," he explained; "but there was no help for
it--nothing else to do. He would have had you in the canal in another
second, if he did not kill you on the way there."

"Poor old Rox," murmured Lloyd; "I was very fond of Rox."

Bennett put himself in her way as she stepped forward. He had the
lap-robe over his arm and the whip in his hand.

"No, don't look at him. He's not a pretty sight. Come, shall I take you
home? Don't worry about the cart; I will see that it is sent back."

"And that Rox is buried--somewhere? I don't want him left out there for
the crows." In spite of Bennett's injunction she looked over her
shoulder for a moment as they started off down the road. "I only hope
you were sure there was nothing else to do, Mr. Bennett," she said.

"There was no time to think," he answered, "and I wasn't taking any
chances."

But the savagery of the whole affair stuck in Lloyd's imagination. There
was a primitiveness, a certain hideous simplicity in the way Bennett had
met the situation that filled her with wonder and with even a little
terror and mistrust of him. The vast, brutal directness of the deed was
out of place and incongruous at this end-of-the-century time. It