gathered himself, and, cracking his lines, he shot forward, and three minutes later he had passed the squire as though he were hitched to the fence.  For a quarter of a mile the squire made heroic efforts to recover his vanished prestige, but effort was useless, and finally concluding that he was practically left standing, he veered off from the main road down a farm lane to find some spot in which to hide the humiliation of his defeat.  The deacon, still going at a clipping gait, had one eye over his shoulder as wary drivers always have on such occasions, and when he saw the squire was off the track he slowed down and jogged along with the apparent intention of continuing indefinitely.  Presently an idea struck him, and he looked around for the widow.  She was not where he had seen her last.  Where was she?  In the enthusiasm of victory he had forgotten her.  He was so dejected at the moment she had leaped that he did not realize what she had done, and two minutes later he was so elated that, shame on him! he did not care.  With her, all was lost; without her, all was won, and the deacon’s greatest ambition was to win.  But now, with victory perched on his horse-collar, success his at last, he thought of the widow, and he did care.  He cared so much that he almost threw his horse off his feet by the abrupt turn he gave him, and back down the pike he flew as if a legion of squires were after him.

He did not know what injury she might have sustained; She might have been seriously hurt, if not actually killed.  And why?  Simply to make it possible for him to win.  The deacon shivered as he thought of it, and urged his horse to greater speed.  The squire, down the lane, saw him whizzing along and accepted it profanely as an exhibition for his especial benefit.  The deacon now had forgotten the squire as he had only so shortly before forgotten the widow.  Two hundred yards from the drift into which she had jumped there was a turn in the road, where some trees shut off the sight, and the deacon’s anxiety increased momentarily until he reached this point.  From here he could see ahead, and down there in the middle of the road stood the widow waving her shawl as a banner of triumph, though she could only guess at results.  The deacon came on with a rush, and pulled up alongside of her in a condition of nervousness he didn’t think possible to him.

“Hooray! hooray!” shouted the widow, tossing her shawl into the air.  “You beat him.  I know you did.  Didn’t you?  I saw you pulling ahead at the turn yonder.  Where is he and his old plug?”

“Oh, bother take him and his horse and the race and everything.  Are you hurt?” gasped the deacon, jumping out, but mindful to keep the lines in his hand.  “Are you hurt?” he repeated, anxiously, though she looked anything but a hurt woman.

“If I am,” she chirped, cheerily, “I’m not hurt half as bad as I would have been if the squire had beat you, deacon.  Now don’t you worry about me.  Let’s hurry back to town so the squire won’t get another chance, with no place for me to jump.”