e the silvery tinkle of running water.

For five days Slone had been a guest of Bostil's, and the whole five
days had been torment.

On the morning of the day after the races Lucy had confronted him.
Would he ever forget her eyes--her voice? "Bless you for saving my
dad!" she had said. "It was brave.... But don't let dad fool you. Don't
believe in his kindness. Above all, don't ride for him! He only wants
Wildfire, and if he doesn't get him he'll hate you!"

That speech of Lucy's had made the succeeding days hard for Slone.
Bostil loaded him with gifts and kindnesses, and never ceased
importuning him to accept his offers. But for Lucy, Slone would have
accepted. It was she who cast the first doubt of Bostil into his mind.
Lucy averred that her father was splendid and good in every way except
in what pertained to fast horses; there he was impossible.

The great stallion that Slone had nearly sacrificed his life to catch
was like a thorn in the rider's flesh. Slone lay there in the darkness,
restless, hot, rolling from side to side, or staring out at the
star-studded sky--miserably unhappy all on account of that horse.
Almost he hated him. What pride he had felt in Wildfire! How he had
gloried in the gift of the stallion to Lucy! Then, on the morning of
the race had come that unexpected, incomprehensible and wild act of
which he had been guilty. Yet not to save his life, his soul, could he
regret it! Was it he who had been responsible, or an unknown savage
within him? He had kept his word to Lucy, when day after day he had
burned with love until that fatal moment when the touch of her, as he
lifted her to Wildfire's saddle, had made a madman out of him. He had
swept her into his arms and held her breast to his, her face before
him, and he had kissed the sweet, parting lips till he was blind.

Then he had learned what a little fury she was. Then he learned how he
had fallen, what he had forfeited. In his amaze at himself, in his
humility and shame, he had not been able to say a word in his own
defense. She did not know yet that his act had been ungovernable and
that he had not known what he was doing till too late. And she had
finished with: "I'll ride Wildfire in the race--but I won't have
him--and I won't have YOU! NO!"

She had the steel and hardness of her father.

For Slone, the watching of that race was a blend of rapture and
despair. He lived over in mind all the time between the race and this
hour when he l