, leaped ahead. Although he had been using
every muscle more and more strenuously for the last fifteen minutes,
new power rushed into his arms. He used every means in his power to
quiet the pair, and, after a little, it began to tell. The ceasing of
the mare's hoofbeats upon the road behind withdrew from the situation
what had been its most dangerous element, and at length, coming to a
sudden sharp rise in the road, Jarvis succeeded in pulling the colts
down to a walk. The instant it became possible he turned them about.

"Now," he said, aloud, to them--and his voice was harsh with
anxiety--"spoil you or not, you may go back at the top of your speed,"
and he sent them, wild-eyed and breathing hard, straight back over
their tracks. And as he neared the place where the mare had fallen, he
held his breath and his heart grew sick within him.

It was an unfrequented road, and no one had come over it since
himself. As he turned the bend he saw just what he had expected to
see, and a great sob shook him. Then he gathered himself, with a
mighty grip upon his whole being, for what there might be left to do
for her.

The brown mare lay in a pitiful heap, her fore legs doubled under her.
Beneath her, kept from being thrown over Betty's head by her foot in
the stirrup, and caught under the roll of the mare's body, lay the
slender figure of her rider.

"Oh--God!" groaned the man, as he threw himself upon the ground beside
her. But as he fearfully turned her head toward him, that he might see
first the worst there was, two dark-lashed, gray eyes slowly unclosed
and looked up into his, and a smile, so faint that it was but the hint
of a smile, trembled about her mouth.

In the swiftness of his relief Jarvis had to lay stern hands upon his
own impulses. He smiled back at her with lips not quite steady. Then
he set about releasing her.

When he had her out upon the grass she lay very white and still again.
"Can you tell me where you are hurt?" he begged. Then, as she did not
answer, he dashed off to a brook which gurgled in a hollow a rod away,
and, coming back with a soaked handkerchief, gently bathed her face
and hair. After a little her eyes unclosed again.

"I--don't think I'm--badly hurt. My shoulder and--my--knee----"

"I'll get you home as soon as you feel able."

She turned her head slowly toward the road. Divining her thought,
Jarvis quietly placed himself between her eyes and the body of the
brown mare. She understo