an, having saved himself by a leap to one side, had instantly
taken to his heels.

Christian was on her feet before even Larry, quick as he was in
stopping his horse and flinging himself from his back, could reach
her.

"Are you hurt?" The question, so fraught with fear, and breathless
with remembered disasters, was answered almost before it was uttered.

"Not a scrap! Absolutely all right; but I don't know about Nancy--"

One of the mare's hind feet was wedged in the fork of a bough; she
struggled fiercely, and in a second or two she had freed both her hind
legs from the tangle of twigs, and lay prone at the foot of the
barricade.

"She's all right! He didn't touch her," said Larry, catching her by
the bridle. "Come, mare!"

Nancy made an effort, attempting to get on to her feet, and rolled
over again on to her side.

"Oh, get the mare up, one of you!" shouted Larry, wild with the rage
that had gathered force from the terror by which it had first been
strangled. "I want to go after that damned coward--"

He caught his horse's bridle from a man who had climbed over the bank,
leaving his own horse on the farther side.

"Why the devil did none of you stop the brute?" he stormed at the
little group, now standing on the bank, looking down upon the
prostrate mare, while he tried to steady his plunging horse in order
to mount.

"It's no good for you, sir!" called John Kearney to him; "he's away
back of the house, ye'll never get him!"

"Don't go, Larry," said Christian, who was kneeling by Nancy,
caressing her and murmuring endearments. "I'm afraid she's badly
hurt."

The mare was lying still. Michael Donovan, who had bred her, slipped
his hand under her, and drew it out, red with blood.

"Go after him, if ye like, the bloody ruffian!" he said, furiously,
"but the mare will never rise from this! Oh, my lovely little mare!"

"What do you mean?" Larry let his horse go, and flung himself on his
knees beside Donovan. Christian, colourless continued to try and
soothe Nancy, who lay without moving, though her frightened eye turned
from one to another, and her ears twitched.

"Staked she is!" roared Donovan; "that's what I mean! Look at what's
coming from her!"

He broke into a torrent of crude statements, made, if possible, more
horrible by curses.

Larry struck him on the mouth with his open hand.

"Shut your mouth! Remember the lady!"

Michael Donovan took the blow as a dog might take it, and without mor