“Everybody’s at the races,” she thought, comforting herself.  “I’m perfectly safe.  No one in the world will see me....  But where is that blessed knot-hole?”

Suddenly her eye chanced on it, and, an instant later, was applied to it, the while the Colonel paused, with his back to her, still anxiously inspecting the tree.

“Ah!” said Miss Alathea, aloud, as she caught a glimpse of something interesting inside the fence.

Instantly the Colonel turned and looked down at her, startled.  Then:  “A woman!” he exclaimed, beneath his breath.  “A woman at my knot-hole!”

Firmly determined to maintain his right he sternly approached her.

“Madam!” he exclaimed, as incensed by her usurpation of the knot-hole as he would have been, at ordinary times, by theft of watch or pocket-book, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

She shrank back from the knot-hole, startled and indignant.  “Sir!” she cried, and then, as he recognized her, she turned and saw who had addressed her.

“Colonel Sandusky Doolittle!” she exclaimed, amazed.

“Miss Alathea Layson!” cried the Colonel, equally amazed, at first, but winding up his gesture of surprise with a low and courtly bow.

“Colonel, what are you doing here?”

“Madame,” he countered, “what are you doing here?”

Miss Alathea’s dignity forsook her.  “Colonel,” she confessed, “I couldn’t wait to hear the result.”

“No more could I,” he somewhat sheepishly admitted.

“But I didn’t enter the race-track,” she explained in haste.

“I was equally firm.”

“And Neb told me of this knot-hole.”

“The rascal—­he told me of it, too.”

“Colonel,” she said, smiling, “we must forgive each other.  If you really must look, there is the knot-hole.”

“No, Miss ’Lethe,” he said gallantly, “I resign the knot-hole to you.  I shall climb the tree.”  Without delay (for sounds from the barrier’s far side hinted to his practiced ear that matters of much moment were progressing, there) he scrambled with much more difficulty than dignity into the spreading crotch.

“Oh, be careful Colonel!” Miss Alathea cried, alarmed.  “Don’t break your neck!” But she added, as an afterthought:  “But be sure to get where you can see.”

“Ah, what a gallant sight!” he cried as he found himself in a position whence he could command a view of the exciting scene within the barrier.  “There’s Catalpa ... and Evangeline ... and ... yes, there is Queen Bess!”

A burst of cheering rose from the crowd within.

Miss Alathea was on tip-toe with excitement.  “What’s that?” she begged.

“A false start,” he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her.  “They’ll make it this time, though,” he added, and she could see his knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of the tree with vise-like fingers.