IX

As a rule few visitors went to Ringwood.

John Porter had been too interested in his horses and his home life to

care much for social matters. Mrs. Porter was a home-body, too, caring

nothing at all for society--at best there was but little of it in

Brookfield--except where it was connected with church work. Perhaps that

was one reason why Allis had grown so close into her father's life. It

was a very small, self-contained household.

Mike Gaynor had become attached to the staff at Ringwood this winter as

a sort of assistant trainer to Porter. Dixon only trained the Ringwood

horses during the racing season, Porter always supervising them in

winter quarters. Perhaps it was Porter's great cloud of evil fortune

which had cast its sinister influence over Mike because of his sympathy

for the master of Ringwood; certain it is that the autumn found him

quite “on his uppers,” as he graphically described his financial

standing. An arrangement was made by which Mike's disconsolate horses

were fed at Ringwood, and he took care of both strings. This delighted

Allis, for she had full confidence in Gaynor's integrity and good sense.

The early winter brought two visitors to Ringwood--Crane, who came quite

often, and Mortimer, who went out to the farm a couple of times with

Alan.

George Mortimer might be described as an angular young man. His face,

large-featured, square-jawed, and bold-topped by broad forehead,

suggested the solemnity Alan had found so trying. Of course a young man

of his make-up was sure to have notions, and Mortimer's mind was knotted

with them; there seemed no soft nor smooth places in his timber. That

was why he had reasoned with the butcher by energetically grasping his

windpipe the evening that worthy gentleman had expressed himself so

distastefully over Allis Porter's contribution to the Reverend Dolman's

concert. Perhaps a young man of more subtle grace would have received

some grateful recognition for this office, but the matter had been quite

closed out so far as Mortimer was concerned; Alan tried to refer to it

afterward, but had been curtly stopped.

George Mortimer's chief notion was that work was a great thing,

seemingly the chief end of man. Another notion almost equally

prominent--he had derived it from his mother--was, that all forms

of gambling were extremely bad business. First and foremost in this

interdiction stood horse racing. The touch of it that hung like a small

cloud over the Brookfield horizon had inspired Mrs. Mortimer, as it had

other good people of the surrounding country, with the restricted

idea that those who had to do with thoroughbred horses were simply

gamblers--betting people. Her home was in Emerson, a dozen miles from

Brookfield.

Quite paradoxically, if Allis Porter had not given “The Run of

Crusader”--most certainly a racing poem--in the little church, this

angular young man with stringent ideas about running horses probably

would have never visited Ringwood. Something of the wide sympathy that

emanated from her as she told of the gallant horse's death struck into

his strong nature, and there commenced to creep into his thoughts at

odd intervals a sort of gratuitous pity that she should be inextricably

mixed up with race horses. His original honesty of thought and the

narrowness of his tuition were apt to make him egotistically sure

that the things which appealed to him as being right were incapable of

variation.

At first he had liked Alan Porter, with no tremendous amount of

unbending; now, because of the interest Allis had excited in him, the

liking began to take on a supervisory form, and it was not without a

touch of irritation in his voice that Alan informed his sister that he

had acquired a second father, and with juvenile malignity attributed the

incumbrance to her seductive influence.

With all these cross purposes at work it can be readily understood that

Mortimer's visits to Ringwood were not exactly rose-leaved. In truth,

the actors were all too conventionally honest, too unsocialized, to

subvert their underlying motives. Allis, with her fine intuition, would

have unearthed Mortimer's disapprobation of racing--though he awkwardly

strove to hide it--even if Alan had not enlarged upon this point. This

knowledge constrained the girl, even drove her into rebellion. She took

his misunderstanding as a fault, almost as a weakness, and shocked

the young man with carefully prepared racing expressions; reveled with

strange abandon in talks of gallops, and trials, and work-outs, and

breathers; threw ironmouthed horses, pullers, skates, and divers other

equine wonders at his head until he revolted in sullen irritation. In

fact they misunderstood each other finely; in truth their different

natures were more in harmony two miles apart, the distance that lay

between the bank and Ringwood.

By comparison Crane's visits to Ringwood were utopianly complacent.

Strangely enough, Mrs. Porter, opposed to racing as she was, came

quite readily under the glamor of his artistic unobtrusiveness. He had

complete mastery over the science of waiting. His admission to the good

lady of a passing interest in horses was an apology; there seemed such

an utter absence of the betting spirit that the recreation it afforded

him condoned the offense.

There was this difference between the two men, the old and the young:

Crane knew exactly why he went there, while Mortimer had asked himself

more than once, coming back from Ringwood feeling that he had been

misunderstood--perhaps even laughed at--why he had gone there at all.

He had no definite plan, even desire; he was impelled to it out of some

unrecognized force. It was because of these conditions that the one

potter turned his images so perfectly, and the other formed only poor,

distorted, often broken, dishes of inferior clay.

It stood in the reason of things, however, that Mortimer, in spite of

his uncompromising attitude toward racing, should be touched by its

tentacles if he visited at Ringwood.

His first baptism came with much precipitancy on the occasion of his

fourth visit to the Porters. He had driven out with Alan to spend his

Saturday afternoon at Ringwood. An afternoon is not exactly like an

evening in the matter of entertaining a guest; something must be done;

cigars, or music, or small chatter are insufficient. If one is on

the western slope of life's Sierra perhaps a nap may kill the time

profitably enough, but this was a case where a young man had to

be entertained, a young man difficult of entertainment under the

circumstances.

Alan had some barbarous expedition of juvenile interest on hand; the

unearthing of a woodchuck, or it might have been a groundhog, in a back

field; but Allis would not become a party to the destruction of animal

life for the sport of the thing. She had a much better programme

mapped out for Mortimer. Some way she felt that if he could see

the thoroughbred horses in their stalls, could come to know them

individually, casually though it might be, he would perhaps catch a

glimmer of their beautiful characters. So she asked Mr. Mortimer to go

and have a look at her pets. Alan would none of it; he was off to his

woodchuck or groundhog.

“I'm glad you don't want to go and kill anything,” she said, turning

gratefully to Mortimer when he refused Alan's invitation, saying that

he preferred to look at the horses. “I'll show you Diablo, and Lucretia,

and Lauzanne the Despised--he's my horse, and I'm to win a big race

with him next year. Gaynor is down at the stables; and I'll give you a

tip”--Mortimer winced--“if you want to stand well in with Mike, let him

suspect that you're fond of horses.”

At the stable door they met Mike Gaynor. Mike usually vacillated between

a condition of chronic anger at somebody or something, and an Irish

drollery that made people who were sick at heart laugh. Allis was as

familiar with his moods as she was with the phases of Lauzanne's temper.

On Mike's face was a map of disaster; the disaster might be trivial or

great. That something was wrong the girl knew, but whether it was that a

valuable horse was dead, or that a mouse had eaten a hole in a grain

bag she could only discover by questioning Gaynor, for there were never

degrees of expressed emotion in Mike's facile countenance; either a deep

scowl or a broad grin were the two normal conditions.

“What's the matter, Mike?” questioned Allis.

“Mather, is it?” began Gaynor, “it's just this, Miss Allis; if yer

father thinks I'm goin' to stand by an' see good colts spiled in their

timper just because a rapscallion b'y has got the evil intints av ould

Nick himself, thin he's mistook, that's all.”

“Who is it Mike--Shandy?”

“That's him, Miss. He's the divil on wheels, bangin' thim horses about

as though he was King Juba.”

Allis saw that Gaynor was indeed angry.

“I'll speak to father about him, Mike,” she answered; “I won't have the

horses abused.”

“Mark my words, Miss Allis, Diablo'll take it out of his hide some

day. The b'y'll monkey wit' him once too often, then there'll be no b'y

left.”

“May we see the horses, Mike--are they having their lie-down, or

anything?”

“Not yet, Miss; they're gettin' the rub-down now; don't ye hear Diablo

bastin' the boords av his stall wid that handy off hind-foot av his?”

“There's a filly for yer life,” exclaimed the Trainer, rapturously,

as he opened gently the door of Lucretia's box stall. “There's the

straightest filly iver looked through a halter,” he continued, putting

his arm with the gentleness of a woman over the brown mare's beautiful

neck. “Come here, ould girl,” he said, coaxingly, as he drew the

haltered head toward the visitors.

Mortimer looked with interest at the big, comfortable box stall,

littered a foot deep with bright, clean, yellow straw. How contented and

at home the mare appeared! It seemed almost a complete recompense, this

attentive care, for the cruelty he imagined race horses suffered.

“You don't tie her up?” he asked.

“Tie her up!” ejaculated Mike, a fine Celtic scorn in his voice; “I'd

rather tie up a wife--if I had one,” he added by way of extenuation.

“No man would tie up a mare worth tin thousand dollars if she's worth a

cent, an' take chances av her throwin' hersilf in the halter; av coorse

she's hitched fer a bit after a gallop while she's havin' a rub-down,

but that's all.”

Lucretia's black nozzle came timidly forward, and the soft, velvety

upper lip snuggled Allis's cheek.

“She knows ye, Miss,” said Mike. “That's the way wit' horses--they're

like children; they know friends, an' ye can't fool thim. Now she's

sizin' ye up, Mister,” as Lucretia sniffed suspiciously at Mortimer's

chin, keeping a wary eye on him. “She'll know if ye like horses or not,

an' I'd back her opinion agin fifty min's oaths.”

Allis watched with nervous interest the investigation. She almost felt

that if Lucretia liked her companion--well, it would be something less

to dislike in him, at all events. Lucretia seemed turning the thing over

in her mind, trying to think it out. There was some mystery about this

new comer. Evidently she did not distrust him entirely, else she would

have put her ears back a trifle and turned away with a little impatient

warning shake of her delicate head. She always turned in that cross

manner from Shandy, the stable boy. She had also discovered that the

visitor was not completely a horseman; she did not investigate his

pockets, nor put her head over his shoulder, as she would have done

with Mr. Porter or Mike, or even with one who was a stranger, as was

Mortimer, had she felt the unmistakable something which conveyed to her

mind that he was of the equine brotherhood.

“Lucretia has found you out,” said Allis, presently. “You do like

horses; she knows it.”

“Oh, I like animals, I don't deny,” Mortimer answered, “but I know very

little about them--nothing about race horses.”

Mike frowned and looked disparagingly at the visitor. “He must be a

quare duck,” he muttered to himself. That a man should know nothing of

thoroughbreds was perfectly inexplicable to Gaynor. He knew many racing

men whose knowledge of horseflesh was a subject for ridicule, but then

they never proclaimed their ignorance, rather posed as good judges than

otherwise.

But with startling inconsistency Mike explained: “There's many like ye,

sir, only they don't know it, that's all; the woods is full av thim.

Would ye like to give the filly a carrot, Miss?” he added, turning to

Allis. “I'll bring some.”

When he returned Allis gave one to Lucretia, then they passed to the

next stall.

“That's a useful horse,” explained the Trainer; “he's won some races in

his 'time.”

“What's his name?” asked Mortimer.

“Game Boy. He's by the Juggler. Ye remember him, don't ye?”

Mortimer was forced to confess that he didn't quite remember Juggler.

“That's strange,” commented Mike, turning the big bay about with evident

pride; “he won the 'Belmont,' at Jerome Park, did the ould Juggler. Ye

must av heerd av that.”

Mortimer compromised by admitting that he had probably forgotten it.

“Well, I haven't,” declared Mike, reproachfully. “If Game Boy stands a

prep this summer ye'll hear from him,” he confided to Mortimer, as they

left the stall. “Jist remember Game Boy; see, ye can't forget--a big bay

wit' a white nigh fore leg, an' a bit rat-tailed. Yes, Game Boy's all

right,” monologued Mike; “but here's a better; this is Diablo. He must

have tabasco in his head, fer he's got the divil's own timper. But he

can gallop a bit; he can go like a quarterhorse, an' stay till the cows

come home; but he's like Lauzanne acrost yonder, he's got a bee in his

bonnet an' it takes a divil to ride him.”

“That's hard on me, Mike,” expostulated Allis. “You see, Lauzanne goes

better with me in the saddle than any of the boys,” she explained to

Mortimer.

“The divil or angels, I was going to say, Miss, when ye interrupted me,”

gallantly responded Mike.

Diablo's head was tied high in a corner of the stall, for Shandy, the

boy, was hard at work on him with a double hand of straw, rubbing him

down. The boy kept up a peculiar whistling noise through his parted lips

as he rubbed, and Diablo snapped impatiently at the halter-shank with

his great white teeth as though he resented the operation.

Mortimer gazed with enthusiasm at the shining black skin that glistened

like satin, or watered silk. Surely there was excuse for people loving

thoroughbreds. It was an exhilaration even to look at that embodiment

of physical development. It was an animate statue to the excellence

of good, clean living. Somehow or other Mortimer felt that though the

living creature before him was only a horse, yet nature's laws were

being adhered to, and the result was a reward of physical perfection and

enjoyment of life. He began to feel that a man, or even a woman--it was

the subtle presence of the woman at his side that made him involuntarily

interject this clause into his inaudible thoughts--yes, even a woman

of high moral attributes might find the most healthy form of interested

amusement in watching the superb development of horses that were

destined for no other purpose than to race and beget sons and daughters

of the same wondrous stamina and courage and speed. His detestation of

racing had been in reality an untutored prejudice; he had looked upon

but one phase of the question, and that quite casually, as it introduced

itself into his life by means of sensational betting incidents in the

daily papers. To him all forms of betting were highly disastrous--most

immoral. But here, like a revelation, came to him, in all its

fascination, the perfect picture of the animal, which he was forced to

admit stood next to man in its adornment of God's scheme of creation.

As Shandy swept his wisp of straw along the sensitive skin of Diablo's

stomach, the latter shrunk from the tickling sensation, and lashed out

impatiently with a powerful hind leg as though he would demolish his

tormentor.

“He's not cross at all just,” explained Mike; “he's bluffin', that's

all. Shure a child could handle him if they'd only go the right way

about it.”

Then he leaned over and whispered in an aside to the visitors--“Bot'

t'umbs up!” (this was Mike's favorite oath). “Diablo hates that b'y an'

some day he'll do him up, mark my words.”

“Here, Shandy,” he cried, turning to the rubber, “loose the Black's head

an' turn him 'round.”

Mortimer almost shrank with apprehension for the boy, for Diablo's ears

were back on his flat, tapering neck, and his eyes looking back at them,

were all white, save for the intense blue-shimmered pupil. To Mortimer

that look was the incarnation of evil hatred. But the boy unsnapped

the halter-shank without hesitation, and Diablo, more inquisitive than

angry, came mincingly toward them, nodding his head somewhat defiantly,

as much as to say that the nature of the interview would depend

altogether upon their good behavior.

“See that!” ejaculated Mike, a pleasant smile of satisfaction rippling

the furrows of his face; “see how he picks out the best friend the

stable's got.”

Diablo had stretched his lean head down, and was trying to nibble with

gentle lip the carrot Allis held half hidden behind her skirt. There

was none of Lucretia's timidity in Diablo's approach; it was full of an

assumption of equality, of trust in the intentions of the stranger who

had come with the mistress he hart faith in.

“They're all like that when Miss Allis is about,” explained Mike; “there

never would be a bad horse if the stable-b'ys worked the same way. Tie

him up, Shandy,” he added. “Even the jockeys spoil their mounts,” Gaynor

continued in a monotone; “the horse'll gallop better for women any

time--they treat thim gentler, that's why.”

“Most interesting,” hazarded Mortimer, feeling some acknowledgment of

Mike's information was due.

“It's the trut'. Miss Allis'd take Lauzanne, or the Black, or the little

mare, an' get a better race out av thim than any jock I've seen ridin'

hereabout.”

“Mike,” exclaimed Allis, “you flatter me; you almost make me wish that I

were a jockey.”

“Well, bot' t'umbs up! Ye'd av made a good un, Miss, an' that's no

disrespect to ye, I'm sayin'.”

Mortimer smiled condescendingly. Allis's quick eye caught his expression

of amused discontent; it angered her. Mike's praise had been practically

honest. To him a good jockey was the embodiment of courage and honesty

and intelligence; but she knew that to Mortimer it simply meant a

phase of life he considered quite outside the pale of recognized

respectability. Somehow she felt that Mike's encomium had lowered her

perceptibly in the opinion of this man whom she herself affected to look

upon with but toleration.

They visited all the other stalls, eight of them, and listened to Mike's

eulogies on the inmates. Coming down the other side of the passage, the

last occupied box stall contained Lauzanne.

“Miss Porter'll tell ye about this wan,” said Mike, diplomatically.

“He's shaped like a good horse, an' his sire, old Lazzarone, landed many

a purse, an' the 'Suburban,' too--won it on three legs, fer he was clean

gone in his pins, I'll take me oath to that. He was a good horse--whin

he liked. Perhaps Lauzanne'll do the same some day, fer all I know.”

There was such a tone of doubt in the Trainer's voice that even Mortimer

noticed it. Neither was there much praise of the big Chestnut; evidently

Mike did not quite approve of him, though hesitating to say so in the

presence of his mistress.

“Yes, Lauzanne is my horse,” volunteered Allis. “I even ride him in all

his work now, since he took to eating the stable-boy.”

“And you're not afraid?” asked Mortimer.

For answer the girl slipped quietly into the stall, and going up beside

the Chestnut, who was standing sulkily with his head in the corner of

his box, took him by the ear and turned him gently around.

“He's just a quiet-mannered chap, that's all,” she said. “He's a

big, lazy, contented old boy,” and she laid her cheek against his

fawn-colored nozzle. “You see,” she explained, “he's got more brains

than any of the other horses, and when he's abused he knows it.”

“But he's grateful when he's kindly treated,” commented Mortimer.

“Yes; that's why I like horses better than men.”

“Oh!” the exclamation slipped from Mortimer's lips.

“Most men, I mean,” she explained. “Of course, father, and Alan, and--”

she hesitated; “you see,” she went on to explain, “the number of my men

friends is limited; but except these, and Mike, and Mr. Dixon, I like

the horses best.”

“I almost believe you're right, Miss Porter,” concurred Mortimer; “I've

known men myself that I fancy were much worse than even Diablo.”

“Mike thinks Lauzanne is a bad horse,” the girl said, changing the

subject, “but he'll win a big race this coming season. You just keep

your eye on Lauzanne. Here's your carrot, old chap,” she said, stroking

the horse's neck, “and we must go if we're to have that drive. Will you

hitch the gray to the buggy for us, Mike?” she asked of Gaynor, as they

came out of the stable, “we'll wait here.”

As Mike started off there came to their ears a sound of turmoil from

Diablo's box; impatient kicks against the boards from the horse, and

smothered imprecations from the boy.

“Hear that fiend!” the girl exclaimed, and there was wrath in her voice.

“He does seem a bad horse,” concurred Mortimer.

“I didn't mean Diablo; it's the boy. It's all his evil doing. Oh,

I've only one glove,” she exclaimed. “I know where it is, though; that

mischievous rascal, Lauzanne, nibbled it from the front of my jacket; I

saw him do it, but forgot to pick it up.”

“Allow me, Miss Porter; I'll get it for you.”

“No; please don't!” with emphasis. As he started back, she laid a

detaining hand on his arm. “I'd much prefer to go myself; Lauzanne

distrusts strangers and might make trouble.”

As the girl entered the stable, Mortimer sauntered on in the direction

Mike had gone.

Allis opened the door of Lauzanne's stall, passed in, and searched in

the straw for the lost glove.

X

The noise of strife in Diablo's box had increased. There came the sound

of blows on the horse's ribs; a muttered oath, and suddenly a scream of

terror from the boy, drowned in an instant by the ferocious battlecry

of the enraged stallion. Mortimer, thirty yards away, heard it, and felt

his heart stand still; he had never heard anything so demoniac in his

life. He turned in such haste that his foot slipped on the frozen earth,

and he fell heavily.

At the first sound of blows Allis had started angrily toward Diablo's

box. She was at the door when Shandy's cry of terror rang out. For an

instant the girl hesitated; what she saw was enough to make a strong man

quail. The black stallion was loose; with crunching jaws he had fastened

on the arm of Shandy, in the corner of the stall, and was trying to pull

the boy down that he might trample him to death. But for a second she

faltered; if ever quick action were needed, it was now.

“Back--back, Diablo! back!” she cried, as pushing past the black demon

she brought her hunting-crop down with full force between his ears.

Whether it was the sound of his mistress's voice, or the staggering

blow, Diablo dropped the boy like a crushed rat, and, half rearing,

looked viciously at the brave girl.

“Quick! through the hay window!” commanded Allis, standing between

Shandy and the horse, and drawing the whip back over her left shoulder,

ready to give it to Diablo full in the throat should he charge again.

Cowed, the boy clambered through the opening. Enraged at the sight of

his assailant's escape, the horse gave another scream of defiance and

sought with striking forefeet and spread jaws to pull down this new

enemy. Not until then had Allis thought of calling for help; her one

idea had been for the boy's safety.

Like a flash the full peril of the situation dawned upon her; perhaps

her life would be given for the boy who well deserved his punishment.

She had seen two stallions fight, and knew that their ferocious

natures, once roused, could only be quelled by a force stronger than she

possessed. Yes, surely she would be killed-her young life trampled

out by the frenzied animal. Incoherently but altogether these thoughts

filled her mind; also the knowledge that Mike was beyond hearing.

“Help, Mortimer!” she called.

He heard it as he reached the stable door. Even then he would have been

too late had not other rescue come more quickly.

In rushing from Lauzanne's stall Allis had left the door swinging on its

hinges. At the first cry of defiance from the black stallion Lauzanne

had stretched high his head and sent back, with curled nostril, an

answering challenge. Then with ears cocked he had waited for a charge

from his natural enemy. When the mingled call of his mistress and

Diablo's bugle note came to him he waited no longer, but rushed across

the passage and seized the black horse by the crest just as he was

overpowering the girl.

It was at that instant Mortimer reached the scene--in his hand a stable

fork he had grabbed as he raced down the passage. Even Lauzanne's

attack, though it gave Allis a respite, would not have saved her life;

the madly fighting horses would have kicked and trampled her to death.

“My God! Back, back, you devils!” And pushing, crowding, hugging the

side of the stall, Mortimer fought his way to the girl.

Once Diablo's hoof shot out and the man's left arm, snapping like a

pistol, dropped useless at his side. His brain reeled with the shock.

The oddly swinging arm, dangling like a doll's, with the palm turned

backward, seemed to fascinate him. Why was he there? What was he doing?

Why was he hammering the horses over the head with a stable fork held

tightly in his right hand? He hardly knew; his mind was clouded; he

was fighting by instinct, and always crowding along the wall toward the

farther corner. The girl had quite faded from his sight. Somehow he felt

that he must drive the horses back, back, out of the stall.

Allis, too, was fighting; bringing the crop down with cutting force over

the withers, neck, head, any part of the plunging mass in front of her.

She could escape now through the opening where the boy had gone; but was

not Mortimer in the same position she had been? She had seen him drop

to his knees when Diablo lashed out; he must be sorely hurt; now he was

reeling like a drunken man as he fought the mad brutes.

“This way,” she panted, catching him by the coat, and pulling him toward

the window.

Ah, that was it! He saw her now. It steadied his senses. It was the

girl, and she had called him--“Mortimer!”

“Back,” he yelled irrelevantly, in answer, cutting Diablo across the

face with the fork. It was pandemonium.

“Get through the window!” the girl screamed in his ear. “Quick! Now!”

and she pushed him toward it.

“You--first--back, you devils!” and he pressed away from her, closer to

the horses, thrusting and striking with the steel-pointed fork.

The horses were giving way; Diablo was fighting half through the door,

weakening before the onslaught of the powerful chestnut. Even in battle,

as in a race, the stamina of the Lazzarone blood was telling; the

bulldog courage of the strain was strong upon Lauzanne, now that he was

roused.

“Quick! You can get out!” again called the girl.

“You first!”

This drear, repetition was the only expression Mortimer's numbed senses

were equal to; but he fought with the ferocity of a tiger--his wound but

enraged him.

They could both escape, Allis knew, if she could bring Mortimer to

understand; but they must do it quick, if at all. It was useless. He

seemed conscious of but the one idea that he must drive the fighting

animals out into the passage to save her. She was not afraid now; the

man's presence had driven that all away. It was useless to speak to

him of the window, neither would go first; so, with her riding whip she

fought side by side with Mortimer; springing back from the swift-cutting

forefeet; sometimes even hugging close to the side of a horse as he

lashed out from behind; and once saving her companion from being cut

down by pulling him swiftly from under a raised foot. In the end the

stallions were forced out into the passage, just as Mike came rushing

upon the scene.

But the battle had waned. Twice Diablo had been pulled to his knees,

forced down by the fierce strength that was Lauzanne's; the Black was

all but conquered. The Trainer's voice checked Lauzanne's fury; even the

boy had plucked up courage to return; and between them the Chestnut was

driven into his stall. All the fight had been taken out of Diablo. He

struggled to his feet, and stood trembling like a horse that had come

out of a fierce cutting race. On his neck were the marks of Lauzanne's

teeth, where they had snapped like the jaws of a trap; from his crest

trickled a red stream that dripped to the floor like water from a

running eave. All the fierce fire of hate had gone from his eyes. He

hung his head dejectedly, and his flanks quivered. Lauzanne, too, bore

evidence of the vicious strife. On one quarter, where Diablo's sharp

hoof had ripped, was a cut as though he had been lashed with a sickle,

and his withers were torn.

Mortimer and Allis had come out of the stall. The man, exhausted by the

struggle, leaned wearily, with pale, drawn face, against the wall; the

floor seemed slipping from under him; he felt a sensation of swiftly

passing off into nothingness. He was sleepy, that was all; but a

sleepiness to fight against--he must still fight.

“You are badly hurt.” It was the girl's voice. He was almost surprised

that he recognized it, everything was so confused. He answered heavily,

“Yes, I'm--I'm--I want--to lie down.”

“Here, lean on my shoulder.” It was Mike's voice this time. “This is bad

business,” the Trainer was saying; “we must get him out of this; he's

nearly knocked out. Are ye all right, Miss?” turning to Allis.

The wounded man turned guiltily; he had forgotten the girl. Yes, surely

she had been in that hell of noises with him--fighting too.

“I'm just frightened, that's all,” answered Allis. “Mr. Mortimer saved

me.”

Had he? he wondered. How had he come in there, anyway? His mind refused

to work out the problem; his side was so sore.

“Yer arm's broke,” said Mike, passing to Mortimer's right side. “Come,

lean on me, sir. Can ye walk? I'll put ye in the buggy and drive ye to

the house.”

At the first step Mortimer staggered and swayed like a drunken man. In

his side were many sharp things pulling him down like grappling irons;

on his head was a great weight that crushed his feet into the hard

planks; his knees gave under this load, and he would have fallen but for

Mike's strong arm.

“I'm--afraid;” then he set his teeth hard, his voice had sought to end

the sentence in a groan of anguish; the thing that was tearing at his

side had whistled in his lungs.

Allis stepped forward swiftly, and passing her arm about his waist,

helped Mike lead him to the door. Twice she put her left hand up

and brushed tears from her eyes; the struggle had unnerved her. Very

helplessly against her swayed the man she had laughed at half an hour

before. And he had been crushed saving her! But that was not why the

tears came--not at all. She was unstrung. “And he's got grit,” she kept

muttering to herself; “he has never even groaned.”

Together they succeeded in getting him into the buggy; then, gently,

Mike drove to the house.