"h.e.l.lo," said the stable man. "Twice in one day! You're not often here at this hour, sir. Which horse will you have?"

"Give me whichever has the most life in him."

"It's Mutineer has the devil in him always, sir. Though it's not yourself need fear any horse. Only look out for the ice."

Peter rode into the Park in ten minutes. He met Lispenard at the first turn.

"h.e.l.lo! It's not often you are here at this hour." Lispenard reined his horse up alongside.

"No," said Peter. "I've been through a very revolt--a very disagreeable experience, and I've come up here to get some fresh air. I don't want to be sociable."

"That's right. Truthful as ever. But one word before we separate. Keppel has just received two proofs of Haden's last job. He asks awful prices for them, but you ought to see them."

"Thanks." And the two friends separated as only true friends can separate.

Peter rode on, buried in his own thoughts. The park was rather empty, for dark comes on early in March, and dusk was already in the air. He shook himself presently, and set Mutineer at a sharp canter round the larger circle of the bridle path. But before they had half swung the circle, he was deep in thought again, and Mutineer was taking his own pace. Peter deserved to get a stumble and a broken neck or leg, but he didn't. He was saved from it by an incident which never won any credit for its good results to Peter, however much credit it gained him.

Peter was so deeply engrossed in his own thoughts that he did not hear the clutter of a horse's feet behind him, just as he struck the long stretch of the comparatively straight path along the Reservoir. But Mutineer did, and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Mutineer could not talk articulately, but all true lovers of horses understand their language.

Mutineer's cogitations, trans.m.u.ted into human speech, were something to this effect:

"h.e.l.lo! What's that horse trying to do? He can't for a moment expect to pa.s.s me!"

But the next moment a roan mare actually did pa.s.s him, going at a swift gallop.

Mutineer laid his ears back, "The impudence!" he said. "Does that little whiffet of a roan mare think she's going to show me her heels?

I'll teach her!" It is a curious fact that both the men and horses who are most seldom pa.s.sed by their kind, object to it most when it happens.

Peter suddenly came back to affairs earthly to find Mutineer just settling into a gait not permitted by Park regulations. He drew rein, and Mutineer, knowing that the fun was up, danced round the path in his bad temper.

"Really," he said to himself, "if I wasn't so fond of you, I'd give you and that mare, an awful lesson. h.e.l.lo! not another? This is too much!"

The last remarks had relation to more clattering of hoofs. In a moment a groom was in view, going also at a gallop.

"Hout of the way," cried the groom, to Peter, for Mutineer was waltzing round the path in a way that suggested "no thoroughfare." "Hi'm after that runaway."

Peter looked after the first horse, already a hundred feet away. He said nothing to groom nor horse, but Mutineer understood the sudden change in the reins, even before he felt that maddening p.r.i.c.k of the spurs. There was a moment's wild grinding of horse's feet on the slippery road and then Mutineer had settled to his long, tremendous stride.

"Now, I'll show you," he remarked, "but if only he wouldn't hold me so d.a.m.ned tight." We must forgive Mutineer for swearing. He lived so much with the stablemen, that, gentleman though he was, evil communications could not be entirely resisted.

Peter was riding "cool." He knew he could run the mare down, but he noticed that the woman, who formed the mount, was sitting straight, and he could tell from the position of her elbows that she was still pulling on her reins, if ineffectually. He thought it best therefore to let the mare wind herself before he forced himself up, lest he should only make the runaway horse the wilder. So after a hundred yards' run, he drew Mutineer down to the mare's pace, about thirty feet behind her.

They ran thus for another hundred yards. Then suddenly Peter saw the woman drop her reins, and catch at the saddle. His quick eye told him in a moment what had happened. The saddle-girth had broken, or the saddle was turning. He dug his spurs into Mutineer, so that the horse, who had never had such treatment, thought that he had been touched by two branding irons. He gave a furious shake of his ears, and really showed the blood of his racing Kentucky forebears. In fifteen seconds the horse was running even with the mare.

Peter had intended merely to catch the reins of the runaway, trusting to his strength to do what a woman's could not. But when he came up alongside, he saw that the saddle had turned so far that the rider could not keep her seat ten seconds longer. So he dropped his reins, bent over, and putting his arms about the woman lifted her off the precarious seat, and put her in front of him. He held her there with one arm, and reached for his reins. But Mutineer had tossed them over his head.

"Mutineer!" said Peter, with an inflection of voice decidedly commanding.

"I covered a hundred yards to your seventy," Mutineer told the roan mare. "On a mile track I could go round you twice, without getting out of breath. I could beat you now, even with double mount easily. But my Peter has dropped the reins and that puts me on my honor. Good-bye."

Mutineer checked his great racing stride, broke to a canter; dropped to a trot; altered that to a walk, and stopped.

Peter had been rather astonished at the weight he had lifted. Peter had never lifted a woman before. His chief experience in the weight of human-kind had been in wrestling matches at the armory, and only the largest and most muscular men in the regiment cared to try a bout with him. Of course Peter knew as a fact that women were lighter than men, but after bracing himself, much as he would have done to try the cross-b.u.t.tock with two hundred pounds of bone and brawn, he marvelled much at the ease with which he transferred the rider. "She can't weigh over eighty pounds," he thought. Which was foolish, for the woman actually weighed one hundred and eighteen, as Peter afterwards learned.

The woman also surprised Peter in another way. Scarcely had she been placed in front of him, than she put her arms about his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. She was not crying, but she was drawing her breath in great gasps in a manner which scared Peter terribly. Peter had never had a woman cling to him in that way, and frightened as he was, he made three very interesting discoveries:

1. That a man's shoulder seems planned by nature as a resting place for a woman's head.

2. That a man's arm about a woman's waist is a very pleasant position for the arm.

3. That a pair of woman's arms round a man's neck, with the clasped hands, even if gloved, just resting on the back of his neck, is very satisfying.

Peter could not see much of the woman. His arm told him that she was decidedly slender, and he could just catch sight of a small ear and a cheek, whose roundness proved the youth of the person. Otherwise he could only see a head of very pretty brown hair, the smooth dressing of which could not entirely conceal its longing to curl.

When Mutineer stopped, Peter did not quite know what to do. Of course it was his duty to hold the woman till she recovered herself. That was a plain duty--and pleasant. Peter said to himself that he really was sorry for her, and thought his sensations were merely the satisfaction of a father in aiding his daughter. We must forgive his foolishness, for Peter had never been a father, and so did not know the parental feeling.

It had taken Mutineer twenty seconds to come to a stand, and for ten seconds after, no change in the condition occurred. Then suddenly the woman stopped her gasps. Peter, who was looking down at her, saw the pale cheek redden. The next moment, the arms were taken from his neck and the woman was sitting up straight in front of him. He got a downward look at the face, and he thought it was the most charming he had ever seen.

The girl kept her eyes lowered, while she said firmly, though with traces of breathlessness and tremulo in her voice, "Please help me down."

Peter was out of his saddle in a moment, and lifted the girl down. She staggered slightly on reaching the ground, so that Peter said: "You had better lean on me."

"No," said the girl, still looking down, "I will lean against the horse." She rested against Mutineer, who looked around to see who was taking this insulting liberty with a Kentucky gentleman. Having looked at her he said: "You're quite welcome, you pretty dear!" Peter thought he would like to be a horse, but then it occurred to him that equines could not have had what he had just had, so he became reconciled to his lot.

The girl went on flushing, even after she was safely leaning against Mutineer. There was another ten seconds' pause, and then she said, still with downcast eyes, "I was so frightened, that I did not know what I was doing."

"You behaved very well," said Peter, in the most comforting voice he could command. "You held your horse splendidly."

"I wasn't a bit frightened, till the saddle began to turn." The girl still kept her eyes on the ground, and still blushed. She was undergoing almost the keenest mortification possible for a woman. She had for a moment been horrified by the thought that she had behaved in this way to a groom. But a stranger--a gentleman--was worse! She had not looked at Peter's face, but his irreproachable riding-rig had been noticed. "If it had only been a policeman," she thought. "What can I say to him?"

Peter saw the mortification without quite understanding it. He knew, however, it was his duty to ease it, and took the best way by giving her something else to think about.

"As soon as you feel able to walk, you had better take my arm. We can get a cab at the 72d Street entrance, probably. If you don't feel able to walk, sit down on that stone, and I'll bring a cab. It oughtn't to take me ten minutes."

"You are very good," said the girl, raising her eyes, and taking a look at Peter's face for the first time.

A thrill went through Peter.

The girl had slate-colored eyes!!

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

A DREAM.

Something in Peter's face seemed to rea.s.sure the girl, for though she looked down after the glance, she ceased leaning against the horse, and said, "I behaved very foolishly, of course. Now I will do whatever you think best."

Before Peter had recovered enough from his thrill to put what he thought into speech, a policeman came riding towards them, leading the roan mare. "Any harm done?" he called.