uld soon sleep upon the hillside. She
put the thought of her father away, and centered her efforts on reaching
the station and the doctor. As she galloped at breakneck speed, the damp
wind swept her face, cutting it sharply, and whipped out her horse's
mane and tail till they fluttered on a level with the saddle.

At the track she ceased striking the sorrel and let him fall into a
slow, steady canter. The downpour was near now, sweeping south in the
strong grasp of a squall to cross her path. She could see that its front
was a sheet not of rain, but of driving hail that rebounded high from
the dry grass. She crouched in her seat and pulled her hat far down to
shield her face.

Before the sorrel made another quarter of a mile, the hailstones had
passed the ties and were kicking up the soft dirt of the embankment like
a volley of shrapnel. When they moved their fire forward to the
wagon-road, they almost hurled the little girl from her saddle. She
cried out in agony as the icy bullets cleft the air and pounded her
cruelly on head and shoulders. A stone the size of a wild duck's egg
split the skin of her rein-hand, and she dropped the bridle and let the
sorrel go at random. Squealing shrilly whenever a missile reached his
tender ears, he stayed in the road, but stopped running, and whirled in
a circle to avoid his punishment. The little girl, though she flinched
under the shower, remained on his back grittily and waited until the
fall thinned and suddenly ended.

Wounded from head to foot, she continued her journey over a road deep
with hail. When the station came in sight, she stopped to wipe the blood
from a hurt on her cheek and to wind her handkerchief around her injured
hand. Then she raced through town and left her message at the doctor's
door.

The doctor hitched up his buggy and, accompanied by his wife, set off
for the farm behind the little girl, who at times rode anxiously far in
the lead, and, again, drew up and trotted beside the vehicle to ask him
to travel faster. But when the farm-house was neared, she could not bear
to lag any longer, and gave the sorrel the bit. As she passed the
carnelian bluff, she skirted it well, though she could not see the mound
or the cross. It had grown dark and they were shrouded in stormy
shadows. But she kept her eyes continually in that direction, and talked
to the horse to quiet a nervous throbbing in her breast that she did not
admit to herself. At the barn she unbuckled