ide. No one had ever tried to take this at a jump. It was
considered more of a swim than anything else, and the hunters always
crossed it by the bridge, towards the left. Travers saw the bridge and
tried to jerk Satan's head in that direction; but Satan kept right on
as straight as an express train over the prairie. Fences and trees and
furrows passed by and under Travers like a panorama run by
electricity, and he only breathed by accident. They went on at the
stream and the hill beyond as though they were riding at a stretch of
turf, and, though the whole field set up a shout of warning and
dismay, Travers could only gasp and shut his eyes. He remembered the
fate of the second groom and shivered. Then the horse rose like a
rocket, lifting Travers so high in the air that he thought Satan would
never come down again; but he did come down, with his feet bunched, on
the opposite side of the stream. The next instant he was up and over
the hill, and had stopped panting in the very centre of the pack that
were snarling and snapping around the fox. And then Travers showed
that he was a thoroughbred, even though he could not ride, for he
hastily fumbled for his cigar-case, and when the field came pounding
up over the bridge and around the hill, they saw him seated
nonchalantly on his saddle, puffing critically at a cigar and giving
Satan patronizing pats on the head.

"My dear girl," said old Mr. Paddock to his daughter as they rode
back, "if you love that young man of yours and want to keep him, make
him promise to give up riding. A more reckless and more brilliant
horseman I have never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and
that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or
later, and he ought to be stopped." Young Paddock was so delighted
with his prospective brother-in-law's great riding that that night in
the smoking-room he made him a present of Satan before all the men.

"No," said Travers, gloomily, "I can't take him. Your sister has asked
me to give up what is dearer to me than anything next to herself, and
that is my riding. You see, she is absurdly anxious for my safety, and
she has asked me to promise never to ride again, and I have given my
word."

A chorus of sympathetic remonstrance rose from the men.

"Yes, I know," said Travers to her brother, "it is rough, but it just
shows what sacrifices a man will make for the woman he loves."

LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG

Young Van Bibber had