s Cynthia, isn't it? At half a mile she oughtn't to
be so very terrible." And I opened my mouth to laugh again. But that
laugh never came into the world. Just then a big horse with a man's
saddle on him and the reins tied to the horn trotted out into the open,
and behind him Cynthia's bay cob and her high, trim cart, and beside
Cynthia on the seat was a man.

I saw the red spokes of the wheel, the silver on the harness, the flash
of the grey feather in Cynthia's hat, and even the bit of ribbon
half-way out the long whip-staff. Then they vanished again, while up the
wind came a peal of laughter and the rumble of wheels, and the faint
hammering of horses in the iron road. On the instant, my heart gave a
great thump, and grew very bitter, and my face hardened and clouded.
"Who was it, Jud?" I said. And my jaws felt stiff. "It was surely Miss
Cynthia," he began, "an' it was surely a Woodford cattle-horse." Then he
stopped with his mouth open, and began to rub his chin. I turned to Ump.
"What Woodford?" I asked.

The hunchback twisted his shaggy head around in his collar like a man
who wishes to have a little more air in his throat. Then he said: "He
was a big, brown horse with a bald face, an' he struck out with his
knees when he trotted. Them's the Woodford horses. The saddle was black
with long skirts, an' it had only one girth. Them's the Woodford
saddles. An' the stirrups was iron, an' there are only one Woodford who
rides with his feet in iron."

I looked at Jud, searching his face for some trace of doubt on which to
hang a little hoping, but it was all bronze and very greatly troubled.
Then he saw what I wanted, and began to stammer. "May be the horse was
tender, an' that was the reason." But Ump piped in, scattering the
little cloud, "That horse ain't lame. He trots square as a dog."

Jud looked away and swung up in his saddle. "May be," he stammered, "may
be the horse throwed him, an' that was the reason." Again Ump, the
destroyer of little hopes, answered from the back of the Bay Eagle, "No
horse ever throwed Hawk Rufe."

I sucked in the air over my bit lips when Ump named him. Rufe Woodford
with Cynthia! I thought for an instant that I should choke. Then I
kicked my heels against El Mahdi and swung him around down-hill. He
galloped from the jump, and behind him thundered the Cardinal, and the
Bay Eagle, with her silk nostrils stretched, jumping long and low like a
great cat.

CHAPTER II

THE PETTICO