Jim Silver never took his eyes off that little figure with the fluttering white shirt riding the crest of the oncoming storm and growing on him with such overwhelming speed.  He dwelt with fascinated eyes upon the give-and-take of her little hands, the set of her shoulders, the swift turn of her head, as she watched the boy at her side.  His will was firm, his heart high.  She seemed to him so fair, so slight, and yet so consummately masterful, as to be something more than flesh and blood.

A rare voice penetrated to his ears through the tumult.

“That’s a little bit o’ better.”

“Ain’t it a cracker?”

“Hold that dog!”

As they came along the flat, the two horses seemed neck and neck.

The dark lad was riding a finish in approved style.  Then the girl stirred with her hands, and the great brown forged ahead.

As the horses came past the watchers, Make-Way-There tailed off suddenly.

Four-Pound-the-Second thundered by like a brown torrent, the stroke of his hoofs making a mighty music.

“Gallops like a railway train,” said a voice at Silver’s side.

It was Joses.

The young man, lifted above himself, did not resent the other’s presence at his side, did not wonder at it.  Indeed, it seemed to him quite natural.  The wonder of Infinite Power made manifest in flesh rapt the beholders out of themselves.  They stood bare-headed in the presence of the abiding miracle, made one by it.

“Can she hold him?” thought Silver as the horse shot past them.

And either he expressed his thoughts unconsciously in words, or as not seldom happens in moments of excitement, Old Mat read his unuttered thoughts.

“She can hold him in a snaffle,” he said.  “She’s the only one as can!”

And in fact the young horse was coming back to his rider.  She was swinging to steady him.  At the top of the rise she turned him, dismounted, and loosed his girths.  Then she led him down the slope back to the group, an alert, fair figure, touched to glory by the gallop, the great horse blowing uproariously at her side, tossing his head and flinging the foam on to his chest and neck, looking like a huge, drenched dog wet from the sea.

“Pull at ye?” asked the old man.

“He caught hold a bit as we came up the slope,” answered Boy.

Jim Silver had dismounted and laid a hand on the horse’s shining neck.

“Great,” he said.

The faint colour was in the girl’s cheeks, and she was breathing deep as she peeped up at him with happy eyes.

“He’s not clumsy for a big horse, is he?” she said.  “Rug him up, Albert, and lead him home.  He’s hit himself, I see—­that off-fore fetlock.  Better put a boracic bandage on when you get him in.”

She put on her long coat and mounted Silvertail.

“Yes, don’t stand about,” said her father; “or you’ll have Mar on to me.”