destruction.

"No fear for Ben, he can ride anything, and Lita was trained to leap,"
answered Miss Celia, falling back on the hay with a groan, for she had
involuntarily raised her head to see her little squire dash away in
gallant style.

"I should hope so; regular jockey, that boy. Never see anything like
it out of a race-ground," and farmer Paine strode on, still following
with his eye the figures that went thundering over the bridge, up the
hill, out of sight, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

Now that his mistress was safe, Ben enjoyed that wild ride mightily,
and so did the bay mare; for Lita had good blood in her, and proved it
that day by doing her three miles in a wonderfully short time. People
jogging along in wagons and country carry-alls, stared amazed as the
reckless pair went by. Women, placidly doing their afternoon sewing at
the front windows, dropped their needles to run out with exclamations
of alarm, sure some one was being run away with; children playing by
the roadside scattered like chickens before a hawk, as Ben passed with
a warning whoop, and baby-carriages were scrambled into door-yards
with perilous rapidity at his approach.

But when he clattered into town, intense interest was felt in this
bare-footed boy on the foaming steed, and a dozen voices asked, "Who's
killed?" as he pulled up at the doctor's gate.

"Jest drove off that way; Mrs. Flynn's baby's in a fit," cried a stout
lady from the piazza, never ceasing to rock, though several passers-by
paused to hear the news, for she was a doctor's wife, and used to the