free as hoboes.  Under foot the meadow turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals fell like confetti before the rough assault of horse and rider.  Gething liked this day of wind and sunshine.  In the city there had been the smell of oiled streets to show that spring had come, here was the smell of damp earth, pollen, and burnt brush.  Suddenly he realized that Cuddy, too, was pleased and contented for he was going quietly now, occasionally he threw up his head and blew “Heh, heh!” through his nostrils.  Strange that Willet had thought Cuddy wanted to kill some one—­all he really wanted was a bit of a canter.

A brook was reached.  It was wide, marshy, edged with cowslips.  It would take a long jump to clear it.  Gething felt the back gather beneath him, the tense body flung into the air, the flight through space, then the landing well upon the firm bank.

“Bravo, Cuddy!” the horse plunged and whipped his head between his forelegs, trying to get the reins from the rider’s hands.  Gething let himself be jerked forward until his face almost rested on the veiny neck.

“Old tricks, Cuddy.  I knew that one before you wore your first shoes.”  He still had easy control and began to really let him out.  There was a succession of walls and fences and mad racing through fields when the horse plunged in his gait and frightened birds fluttered from the thicket and Gething hissed between his teeth as he always did when he felt a horse going strong beneath him.

Then they came to a hill that rose out of green meadows.  It was covered with dingy pine trees except the top that was bared like a tonsure.  A trail ran through the woods; a trail singularly morose and unattractive.  The pines looked shabby and black in comparison to the sun on the spring meadows.  This was Break-Neck Hill.  Perhaps Cuddy felt his rider stiffen in the saddle for he refused passionately to take the path.  He set his will against Gething’s and fought, bucking and rearing.  When a horse is capable of a six foot jump into the air his great strength and agility make his bucking terrible.  The broncho is a child in size and strength compared to Cuddy’s race of super-horse.  Twice Geth went loose in his flat saddle and once Cuddy almost threw himself.  The chain bit had torn the edges of his mouth and blood coloured his froth.  Suddenly he acquiesced and quiet again, he took the sombre path.  Geth thrust his right hand into his pocket, the revolver was still there.  His hand left it and rested on the bobbing, tasseled mane.

“Old man,” he addressed the horse, “I know you don’t know where you’re going and I know you don’t remember much, but you must remember Saratoga and how we beat them all.  And Cuddy, you’d understand—­if you could—­how it’s all over now and why I want to do it for you myself.”