ing danger.

The bulk of the photographs were of interiors of different rooms and
passages and in every one the girl might be seen, either full length in
the distance or closer, with perhaps little more than a hand or arm or
portion of the head or dress included in the photograph. All of these had
evidently been taken with some definite aim that did not have for its
first purpose the picturing of the girl, but obviously of her
surroundings and they made me very curious, as you can imagine.

Near the bottom of the pile, however, I came upon something _definitely_
extraordinary. It was a photograph of the girl standing abrupt and clear
in the great blaze of a flashlight, as was plain to be seen. Her face was
turned a little upward as if she had been frightened suddenly by some
noise. Directly above her, as though half-formed and coming down out of
the shadows, was the shape of a single enormous hoof.

I examined this photograph for a long time without understanding it more
than that it had probably to do with some queer case in which Carnacki
was interested. When Jessop, Arkright and Taylor came in Carnacki quietly
held out his hand for the photographs which I returned in the same spirit
and afterward we all went in to dinner. When we had spent a quiet hour at
the table we pulled our chairs 'round and made ourselves snug and
Carnacki began:

"I've been North," he said, speaking slowly and painfully between puffs
at his pipe. "Up to Hisgins of East Lancashire. It has been a pretty
strange business all 'round, as I fancy you chaps will think, when I have
finished. I knew before I went, something about the 'horse story,' as I
have heard it called; but I never thought of it coming my way, somehow.
Also I know _now_ that I never considered it seriously--in spite of my
rule always to keep an open mind. Funny creatures, we humans!

"Well, I got a wire asking for an appointment, which of course told me
that there was some trouble. On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins
himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the
horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and
understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be
haunted by the Horse during her courtship.

"It is, as you can see already, an extraordinary story and though I have
always known about it, I have never thought it to be anything more than
an old-time legend, as I have already hinted. You see, for seven