evolver. It was a beastly noise, but it rejoiced me; till suddenly I
heard her pant out a sickened sentence that made me gasp, because it was
such a funny thing to say.

"My heavens, I never thought I could be cruel to animals--like this. But
I've got to do it. I"--her voice rose in sudden disjointed triumph--"Mr.
Stretton, I believe I've stopped them!"

"I believe you have," I swore blankly,--and one leapt out of the dark by
the fore wheel as I spoke, and she shot it.

But it was the last; she _had_ stopped them. And if I had not known that
to have turned even one eye from my horses as we tore down that hill
would have meant we were smashed up on one side of it, I would have been
more ashamed than I was of being fought for by a girl. "You're a
wonder--just a marvellous wonder," I got out thickly. "We're clear--and
it's thanks to you!" And ahead of us, in the jungle-thick hemlock that
crowded the sides of the narrow road I had corduroyed through the swamp
for a ricketty mile, a single wolf howled.

It had a different, curious note, a dying note, if I had known it; but I
did not realize it then. I thought, "We're done! They've headed us!" I
said, "Look out ahead for all you're worth. If we can keep going, we'll
be through this thicket in a minute."

But Paulette cut out my thought. "We _are_ done, if they throw the
horses!" And instantly, amazingly, she stood up in the bumping, swaying
wagon as if she were on a dancing floor and shed Dudley Wilbraham's
coat. She leaned toward me, and I felt rather than saw that she was in
shirt and knickerbockers like a boy. "Keep the horses going as steady as
you can, and whatever you do, don't try to stop them. I'm going to do
something. Mind, keep them _galloping_!"

I would have grabbed her; only before I knew what she was going to do
she was past me, out over the dashboard, and running along the smashed
pole between Bob and Danny in the dark.

It was nothing to do in daylight. I've done it myself before now, and so
have most men. But for a girl, in the dark and on a broken pole, with
wolves heading the horses,--I was so furiously afraid for her that the
blood stopped running in my legs, and it was a minute before I saw what
she was after. She had not slipped; she was astride Danny--ducking under
his rein neatly, for I had not felt the sign of a jerk--but only God
knew what might happen to her if he fell. And suddenly I knew what she
had run out there to do. She was shooting a