oth to-day--a brilliant day
after long weeks of rain. Sammy whistled softly. Clown coquetted with
the bit, danced under the touch of the whip, and finally took the steep
mountain road with such convulsive springs as jolted his rider
violently from dreams.

"Why, you fool, are you trying to run away?" said Sammy, suddenly alive
to the situation. The road here was a mere shelf on the slope of the
mountain, constantly used by descending lumber teams, and dangerous at
all times. A runaway might easily be fatal. Sammy pulled at the bit;
but, at the first hard tug, the old bridle gave way, and Clown,
maddened by a stinging blow from the loose flying end of the strap,
bolted blindly ahead.

Terrified now, Sammy clung to the pommel and shouted. The trees flew
by; great clods of mud were flung up by the horse's feet. From far up
the road could be heard the creaking of a lumber team and the crack of
the lumberman's long whip.

"My Lord!" said Sammy, aloud, in a curious calm, "we'll never pass
THAT!"

And then, like a flash, it was all over. Clown, suddenly freed from his
rider, galloped violently for a moment, stopped, snorted suspiciously,
galloped another twenty feet, and stood still, his broken bridle
dangling rakishly over one eye. Sammy, dragged from the saddle at the
crucial instant to the safety of Anthony Gayley's arms, as he brought
his own horse up beside her, wriggled to the ground.

"That was surely going some!" said Anthony, breathing hard. "Hurt?"

"No-o!" said Sammy. But she leaned against the tall, big fellow, as he
stood beside her, and was glad of his arm about her shoulders.

They had known each other by sight for years, but this was the first
speech between them. Anthony suddenly realized that the doctor's
youngest daughter, with her shy, dark eyes and loosened silky braids,
had grown from an awkward child into a very pretty girl. Sammy,
glancing up, thought--what every other woman in Wheatfield
thought--that Anthony Gayley was the handsomest man she had ever seen,
in his big, loose corduroys, with a sombrero on the back of his tawny
head.

"I was awfully afraid I'd grate against your leg," said the boy, with
his sunny smile; "but I couldn't stop to figure it out. I just had to
hustle!"

"There's a lumber wagon ahead there," Sammy said. "I'm--I'm very much
obliged to you!"

They both laughed. Presently Anthony made the girl mount his own
beautiful mare.

"Ride Duchess home. I'll take your horse