meetings, was certainly a matter for more than ordinary
pride.

Such regard was undoubtedly meted out to it, and as a corollary there
were prophets in the city who foresaw the later development of a
Country Club, with a golf course, and the provision for every other
outdoor sport under its luxurious administration. Those who could
afford such luxuries pretended to look upon these things as
indispensable, and those who couldn't regarded them with simple pride,
and lived in the glamour of their reflected glory, and told each other
how such things should be administered.

Such developments, however, were for the future. The race-track
existed, and, amongst its many other delights, it supplied the cranks
with a text for frequent sermons.

It was set in a luxurious woodland dip, well beyond the town limits,
and occupied a small flat of rich grass through which a mountain creek
wound its ridiculously tortuous course. Thus it was provided with the
natural resources demanded by a steeplechase course as well as the
"flat."

It was a toy which the wealth of the neighborhood had been poured out
upon with no niggard hand, till it found itself possessed of a
miniature grand stand, a paddock and loose boxes, for the use of many a
pony whose normal days were spent roaming wild upon the plains. Then
there was the Polo Club House and ground, where many of the city's
social functions were held. The whole thing was as pretentious as
money could make it, and in due proportion it was attractive to the
minds of those who believed themselves leaders in their social world.

Nan Tristram understood all this and smiled at it, just as she
understood that to absent oneself from the Polo Club Races in Cattle
Week would be to send in one's resignation from the exclusive social
circles to which she belonged, a position quite unthinkable for one who
sought only the mild excitements which pertain to early youth.

The noon following the ball, and all the disturbed moments which it
inspired, found Nan on the way to the Polo Club Races. Her party was
riding, and it was an extensive party. There were some twenty and more
saddles. Luncheon had been sent on ahead, catered for by Aston's Hotel
at Jeffrey Masters' expense, one of the many social duties which his
election to the Presidency of the Western Union Cattle Breeders'
Association entitled him to undertake during the Cattle Week.

It was a gay party, mostly made up of young and prosperou