ssible honor and success, stirred the
hearts of the young men gloriously, and as they galloped across the
plains, or raced each other from point to point, or halted to jump
their ponies across the many gaping crevices which the sun had split in
the surface of the plain, they filled the still, warm air with their
shouts and laughter. In the party there were many ladies, and the
groups changed and formed again as they rode forward, spread out on
either side of the caravan-trail and covering the plain like a skirmish
line of cavalry. But Kalonay kept close at Miss Carson's stirrup,
whether she walked her pony or sent him flying across the hard,
sunbaked soil.

"I hope you won't do that again," he said, earnestly, as she drew up
panting, with her sailor hat and hair falling to her shoulders. They
had been galloping recklessly over the open crevices in the soil.

"It's quite the nastiest country I ever saw," he said. "It looks as
though an earthquake had shaken it open and had forgotten to close it
again. Believe me, it is most unsafe and dangerous. Your pony might
stumble--" He stopped, as though the possibilities were too serious for
words, but the girl laughed.

"It's no more dangerous than riding across our prairie at dusk when you
can't see the barbed wire. You are the last person in the world to
find fault because a thing is dangerous," she added.

They had reached the farm, where they went to breakfast, and the young
Englishman who was their host was receiving his guests in his garden,
and the servants were passing among them, carrying cool drinks and
powdered sweets and Turkish coffee. Kalonay gave their ponies to a
servant and pointed with his whip to an arbor that stood at one end of
the garden.

"May we sit down there a moment until they call us?" he said. "I have
news of much importance--and I may not have another chance," he begged,
looking at her wistfully. The girl stood motionless; her eyes were
serious, and she measured the distance down the walk to the arbor as
though she saw it beset with dangers more actual than precipices and
twisted wire. The Prince watched her as though his fate was being
weighed in his presence.

"Very well," she said at last, and moved on before him down the
garden-path.

The arbor was open to the air with a low, broad roof of palm-leaves
that overhung it on all sides and left it in deep shadow. Around it
were many strange plants and flowers, some native to Moroc