e foot of Buck Mountain. By a cut
across the sheep-pasture the first part of the way could be reduced
nearly a mile.

"She certainly is keen for the fun," thought Bob, as he saw Sydney turn
from the avenue and drive Johnny at a gate which he knew that she did
not care often to take.

"Too high for Johnny. I must tell her not to do that again," he
commented, as he noticed during his own flight that the top rail was
split from contact with the first horse's heels.

[Illustration: A fence at the top of a sharp ascent]

Down the hill and across the field tore the sorrel, leaping the branch,
and slackening to allow the gray's approach only when he came to a
fence whose position at the top of a sharp ascent forbade his taking
it.

Sydney looked back impatiently as Bob covered the dozen lengths between
them and swung off to open the gate.

"You might wait for a fellow," he grumbled, but already the girl was
through, and her white blouse and ruddy hair shone half-way across the
unenclosed meadow upon which she had entered. For the first time her
pale face impressed Bob.

"Looks like she saw something," he thought, with a remnant of old
superstition. "I do believe she thinks there's going to be bloodshed."
And with a view to reassuring her, he caught up with her in the path
through the belt of woods that led from the field to the road. Their
horses were nose on tail, and of necessity going slowly.

"Sydney!" he cried, "O-oh, Sydney! You don't think it's serious, do
you? Because----"

Here the path debouched into the open road, and Johnny was off again
before Bob could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney,
had sounded to her only like a desire for his own reassurance, and had
alarmed her more than ever.

A mad feeling within pricked her to tear on without slackening. She
felt that she could have galloped to the very top of the mountain
without fatigue. Her horsewoman's intelligence, however, warned her to
think of her animal, and she took him along quietly through the open
place before the post-office, giving Bob a chance to catch up.

He was thoroughly out of temper now. Never before had Sydney been so
careless of him. He couldn't understand it; but he was beginning to
realize that she was taking the adventure seriously, and, with boyish
malice, he resolved to make no further effort to undeceive her.

Indeed, as they rode on slowly and silently, side by side, for a few
hundred yards, he became not s