race madly across the green; Miss
Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was
pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs.
Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as
rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and
abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue.

She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of
brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania
was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and
clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and
farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the
cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would
have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance
in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow,
horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across
to catch the bicycle.

"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did
not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the
catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway
wheel.

"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_"

The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's
bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path
of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had
not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds
carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering
momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was
rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He
crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still
on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them.
Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day
for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken."

When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in
bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished
to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked
this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him,
or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give
it to you."