o snorted wildly, and dashed into the street, jerking
the reins from Parker's hand, and rolling him over in the dust. There
was the customary soothing yell with which civilization always greets a
runaway, and a man sprang from a doorway on the opposite side of the
street, and flung himself in front of the frightened horses. The pinto
reared, but the stranger's hand was on the bridle; a firm and skillful
hand it seemed, for the horses came down on quivering haunches, and then
stood still, striving to look around their blinders in search of the
modern centaur that had terrified them.

Idy had fallen back into the seat without a word or cry, and sat there
bolt upright, her face so white that it gleamed through the meshes of
her veil.

"Well," she said, with a long panting breath, "that was a pretty close
call fer kingdom come, wasn't it?"

The stranger, who was stroking the pinto's nose, and talking to him
coaxingly, laughed.

"Hello, Park!" he said as the latter came up. "Cold day, wasn't it? Got
your jacket pretty well dusted for once, I guess."

The crowd that had collected laughed, and two or three bareheaded men
began to examine the harness. While this was in progress, the
livery-stable keeper took a look at the pinto's teeth, and they all
confided liberally in one another as to what they had thought when they
first heard the racket. The young man who had stopped the team left them
in the care of a newcomer, and walked around beside Idy.

"Won't you come into the office and rest a little?" he asked.

"Oh, thanks, no," said the girl, with a shuddering, nervous laugh; "I
hain't done nothin' to make _me_ tired. I think you're the one that
ought to take a rest. If it hadn't been fer you I'd been a goner, sure."

Her rescuer laughed again and turned away, moving his hand involuntarily
toward his head, and discovering that it was bare. The discovery seemed
to amuse him even more highly, and he made two or three strides to where
his hat lay in the middle of the street, and went across to his office,
dusting the hat with long, elaborate flirts of his gayly bordered silk
handkerchief.

The knot of men began to disperse, and the boys, who lingered longest,
finally straggled away, stifling their regret that no one was mangled
beyond recognition. Parker climbed into the wagon, and drove over to
Saunders's store.

"I don't know as I'd better buy a jersey to-day," giggled Idy, as she
stepped from the wagon to the elevat