s flashed as they had
done in the Lone Star schoolhouse when he broke his violin across his
knee.

"Yes, I will," he said, quietly, and he believed that he delivered his
soul to hell as he said it.

They had reached the rougher country now, where the road wound through
a narrow cut in one of the bluffs along the creek, when a beat of hoofs
ahead and the sharp neighing of horses made the ponies start and Eric
rose in his stirrups. Then down the gulch in front of them and over the
steep clay banks thundered a herd of wild ponies, nimble as monkeys and
wild as rabbits, such as horse-traders drive east from the plains of
Montana to sell in the farming country. Margaret's pony made a shrill
sound, a neigh that was almost a scream, and started up the clay bank to
meet them, all the wild blood of the range breaking out in an instant.
Margaret called to Eric just as he threw himself out of the saddle and
caught her pony's bit. But the wiry little animal had gone mad and was
kicking and biting like a devil. Her wild brothers of the range were all
about her, neighing, and pawing the earth, and striking her with their
forefeet and snapping at her flanks. It was the old liberty of the range
that the little beast fought for.

"Drop the reins and hold tight, tight!" Eric called, throwing all his
weight upon the bit, struggling under those frantic forefeet that now
beat at his breast, and now kicked at the wild mustangs that surged and
tossed about him. He succeeded in wrenching the pony's head toward him
and crowding her withers against the clay bank, so that she could not
roll.

"Hold tight, tight!" he shouted again, launching a kick at a snorting
animal that reared back against Margaret's saddle. If she should lose
her courage and fall now, under those hoofs--He struck out again and
again, kicking right and left with all his might. Already the negligent
drivers had galloped into the cut, and their long quirts were whistling
over the heads of the herd. As suddenly as it had come, the struggling,
frantic wave of wild life swept up out of the gulch and on across the
open prairie, and with a long despairing whinny of farewell the pony
dropped her head and stood trembling in her sweat, shaking the foam and
blood from her bit.

Eric stepped close to Margaret's side and laid his hand on her saddle.
"You are not hurt?" he asked, hoarsely. As he raised his face in the
soft starlight she saw that it was white and drawn and that his lip