se
you've dug with your own head!' And up it was for her and away again
on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods make it a shame
they're ever called hunters. Fall the best must, one day or another;
but while the thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his feet
and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider time to fall free
if down he must go, the cold-blood falls loose and flabby as an empty
sack, and he and his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked
them off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a true
thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up on cold or hot blood,
along she'd drive at anything those two hare-brained dare-devils would
point her at, spur diggin', crop splashin'!

"Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times the lads are always
larkin' and puttin' up games on each other out of the stock of
divilment that won't keep till the next run, each never quite so happy
as when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a wager.

"One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's place.

"'Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up to?' sings out Lory to
Raven, the minute we stopped at his porch.

"'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some help of you.'

"'Give it a name,' says Lory.

"'Easy,' says Raven; 'the master's got a new fad--crazy to mount the
hunt on white horses. I've old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy
white ones for the two whips, but where to get a white mount for Jack
stumps us. Jogged over to see if you could help us out.'

"Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west across his spring
lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his eye, and followin' the line of
his glance, there slouchin' in a fence corner I saw Lory's old white
work-mare, Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the little
Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower for hers. I'd heard Lory
say she was eighteen years old and that once she was gray, but now
she's white as a first snow-fall.

"'How would old gray Molly do, Raven?' presently asks Lory.

"'Do? Has she ever hunted?' asks Raven.

"'Divil a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' says Lory; 'never
had a saddle on, as far as I know, but she has the quarters and low
sloping shoulders of a born jumper, and it's you must admit it. Let's
have a look at her.'

"So out across the spring lot the three of us went, to the corner where
Molly was dozin'. And true for Lory it was, the old lady had