as set in a straight line. Her pony was flecked
with foam; his eyes were wild; and Burton heard his hoarse panting and
the pounding of his hoofs.

Careless of tree limbs, the girl swept through the woods. It came over
Burton that, in this way, and, in trying to keep up with this very dog,
her father had broken his knee. He wheeled his own horse about and tried
to follow. But she had disappeared in her mad search; even the sound of
her pony's hoofs had died away. Burton drew up his horse, and looked at
his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed, and still the judges waited.
Again Burton mopped his face with his handkerchief.

He had been an object of admiration among the men, and now they
gathered about him. The faces of them all showed with what sympathy they
were watching Jess Arnold's gallant fight. Again Burton looked at his
watch. Twenty minutes--and the judges still waited out yonder, and Count
Redstone rested.

"Can't we do something?" demanded Burton.

Not a thing, they said. Leaving out the fact that the judges would not
permit many scouters, it wasn't good for a crowd to ride over the
fields. The dog would see them, from a distant hill, perhaps, think he
was going right, and keep on. It was all over, anyway, one man ventured:
Arnold's Drake was out of the race. It was a pity, too. But for the
bolting he was a great dog. They began to talk of this race as of
something that might have been.

Then a man cried out excitedly, "Yonder she comes now! She's got him,
too! That girl don't give up--she don't know how!"

Burton saw her galloping toward them, and with her the wild dog.

"Is time up?" she panted, reining in her pony.

"Five minutes!" said Burton.

"He was on birds!" she gasped. "But he was off the course. Five minutes,
you say?"

She threw herself from the saddle. A man caught the reins of her
panting, foam-flecked pony, and she was down on the ground beside the
dog, while the others gathered about her. She had made the dog lie down.
She was stroking him.

"You devil!" Burton heard her gasp. "You darling! You beauty! You
wonder! Oh, I love you, but you don't love me--me or Dad!"

She was oblivious now of the men about her. The slim hand was stroking
the head, the long back, quietly, smoothly. "Steady!" she was pleading.
"Steady, old man. Look at me!" She had caught his head and raised his
eyes to hers. "Can't you see? Oh, you beauty--can't you see? See what it
means! Now, now--be quiet--just a minu