nt, recking little of the grade whether up or
down.

It became a game of follow-my-leader, with Knight and Blue Bonnet
heading the procession and putting their horses through a performance
that would have lamed anything but a Western cow-pony. Knight finally
led the way to one of the "race-paths" that abound in the hilly
regions of Texas, and there began a tournament that for years lived in
Sarah's memory as the most reckless exhibition of daring ever seen
outside a circus-ring.

"Who made this race-track?" she asked Knight in one of the infrequent
pauses in the performance.

"Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met
this assertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the
smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long,
edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably
to show the hand of man in its creation.

"It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "--I swear
it by the mane of my milk-white steed!"

Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskin pony he rode, and
then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith
in people imposed upon.

Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him
to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in
Senorita Blake's estimation," he told her.

"What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just
how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable.

"She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm,
"--but not exciting."

Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't
polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask
that.

"She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of
warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible."

"And that?"

"Having been brought up in Texas!"

If Knight had expected a blush to follow his outspoken compliment he
was disappointed. Blue Bonnet's hearty laugh showed a very healthy
absence of self-consciousness in her make-up.

"My Aunt Lucinda thinks that is my very worst drawback," she declared;
and then chirping to Firefly, she was off at a break-neck pace, hat
bobbing, brown braid flying, her eyes alight with the excitement of
the race.

[Illustration: "THEY ALL GATHERED GYPSY-FASHION ABOUT THE FIRE."]

The climax of the day was the gypsy picnic. When Blue Bonnet beheld
the camp-fire with the pail of co