cried Albert.

Then a silence fell upon the watchers like a cloud. Their hearts were
full, their spirits fluttering against the bars of their prison-house.

The horses dropped into a dip again, and only the heads and shoulders of
the riders were seen surging forward, borne on the crest of a roaring
avalanche of sound.

As they came up the last hill with shooting feet and knees that buffeted
the air, they were locked together, the little riders lying over the
necks of their horses and watching each other jealously.

In the silence there was something terrifying about the tumult of those
swift, oncoming feet. The earth shook and trembled. Even Billy Bluff was
awed and quivering.

Jim Silver never took his eyes off that little figure with the
fluttering white shirt riding the crest of the oncoming storm and
growing on him with such overwhelming speed. He dwelt with fascinated
eyes upon the give-and-take of her little hands, the set of her
shoulders, the swift turn of her head, as she watched the boy at her
side. His will was firm, his heart high. She seemed to him so fair, so
slight, and yet so consummately masterful, as to be something more than
flesh and blood.

A rare voice penetrated to his ears through the tumult.

"That's a little bit o' better."

"Ain't it a cracker?"

"Hold that dog!"

As they came along the flat, the two horses seemed neck and neck.

The dark lad was riding a finish in approved style. Then the girl
stirred with her hands, and the great brown forged ahead.

As the horses came past the watchers, Make-Way-There tailed off
suddenly.

Four-Pound-the-Second thundered by like a brown torrent, the stroke of
his hoofs making a mighty music.

"Gallops like a railway train," said a voice at Silver's side.

It was Joses.

The young man, lifted above himself, did not resent the other's presence
at his side, did not wonder at it. Indeed, it seemed to him quite
natural. The wonder of Infinite Power made manifest in flesh rapt the
beholders out of themselves. They stood bare-headed in the presence of
the abiding miracle, made one by it.

"Can she hold him?" thought Silver as the horse shot past them.

And either he expressed his thoughts unconsciously in words, or as not
seldom happens in moments of excitement, Old Mat read his unuttered
thoughts.

"She can hold him in a snaffle," he said. "She's the only one as can!"

And in fact the young horse was coming back to his rider. She was
sw