k perfectly
stunning on me, and wasn't it lucky they fit me so beautifully? They're
called the Non Plush Ultra.'

"'The what?' I says.

"'The Non Plush Ultra,' she answers. 'That's the name of them sewed in
the band.'

"'What's that mean?' I wanted to know.

"'Why,' says Stella, 'that's Latin or Greek, I forget which, and it
means they're the best, I believe. Oh, let me see! Why, it means nothing
beyond, or something like that; the farthest you can go, I think. One
forgets all that sort of thing after leaving high school.'

"'Well,' I says, 'they fit fine, and it's the only modest rig for a
woman to ride a horse in, but they certainly are non plush, all right.
That thin goods will never wear long against saddle leather, take my
word for it.'

"But of course this made no impression on Stella--she was standing on
the centre table by now, so she could lamp herself in the glass over the
mantel--and then she tells me about the excursion for Saturday and how
Mr. Burchell Daggett is enthused about it, him being a superb horseman
himself, and, if I know what she means, don't I think she carries
herself in the saddle almost better than any girl in her set, and won't
her style show better than ever in this duck of a costume, and she must
get her tan shoes polished, and do I think Mr. Daggett really meant
anything when he said he'd expect her some day to return the masonic pin
she had lifted off his vest the other night at the dance, and so on.

"It was while she was babbling this stuff that I get the strange hunch
that Hetty Tipton is in grave danger and I ought to run to her; it
seemed almost I could hear her calling on me to save her from some
horrible fate. So I tell Stella yes, she's by far the finest rider in
the whole Kulanche Valley, and she ought to get anything she wants with
that suit on, and then I beat it quick over to the Ezra Button house
where Hetty boards.

"You can laugh all you want to, but that hunch of mine was the God's
truth. Hetty was in the gravest danger she'd faced since one time in
early infancy when she got give morphine for quinine. What made it more
horrible, she hadn't the least notion of her danger. Quite the contrary.

"'Thank the stars I've come in time!' I gasps as I rushes in on her, for
there's the poor girl before her mirror in a pair of these same Non
Plush Ultras and looking as pleased with herself as if she had some
reason to be.

"'Back into your skirts quick!' I says. 'I'm a