nnis court held one individual whose wits worked as quickly as the
star performer's, and there and then shrilled across it a high-pitched,
peculiar whistle which they both knew mighty well, and the four-legged
one obeyed instanter by wheeling so suddenly that he put a very realistic
climax upon the scene by nearly unseating the two-legged one, as he tore
pell mell for the whistler and came to a sudden halt in front of him, to
the increased astonishment of the general audience.

"Gee whiz, Bev! What's let loose?" cried Athol, trying to respond to
Apache's nozzling, whinnying demonstrations of delight and reach his
sister's extended hands at the same time, while Archie did his
record-breaking sprint across the gridiron, and the whole field came
boiling toward them.

"_I_ have. Don't you see I've been run away with? It's lucky Apache
turned in here," answered Beverly, with remarkable calmness for one so
lately escaped from disaster or sudden death, as she brushed back her
flying locks, for--well--reasons.

"Run away nothing! _You_ run away with! Piffle. Ah, cut it out Apache! I
know you're ready to throw a fit at seeing me, but keep bottled up for a
minute, won't you?" he ended as Apache lay hold of his tennis shirt and
tried to jerk him into attention. But he gave the bony little head a
good-natured mauling nevertheless, as Archie rushing up exclaimed:

"You're a winner, Bev!" Then the others surrounded them, the two coaches
really concerned lest the young lady had suffered some mishap, and Mr.
Cushman brushing the boys aside as he asked:

"Are you faint? Can we be of any assistance?" and Mr. Ford, the new
instructor from Yale and mighty good to look upon (so decided Beverly in
the space of one glance) pressed to her side to ask: "Were you riding
alone when your mount bolted?"

Before Beverly could draw breath to reply the answer came from another
quarter.

Now there is no such accomplished actor, (or liar) upon the face of the
round world as your genuine darkey. Indeed he can do both so perfectly
that he actually lives in the characters he temporarily creates and
believes his own prevarications, and that, it must be admitted, is _some
achievement_.

When Beverly departed so suddenly upon her self-elected route, Jefferson
naturally had but a very hazy idea of her intentions. He knew Kilton Hall
lay over five miles straight ahead, and he knew, also that Beverly's
brother was at school there, but Jefferson did not