Miss Porter fluttered to the ground. She was followed by Hornsby. "Just
a minit, Miss," he expostulated, half shamedly, half brusquely, "ye
don't onderstand me. I only--"

But Miss Porter had jumped into the coach.

Hornsby placed his hand on the handle of the door. Miss Porter grasped
it firmly from the inside. There was a slight struggle.

All of which was part of a dream to the boyish Cass. But he awoke
from it--a man! "Do you," he asked, in a voice he scarcely recognized
himself,--"Do you want this man inside?"

"No!"

Cass caught at Hornsby's wrist like a young tiger. But alas! what
availed instinctive chivalry against main strength? He only succeeded
in forcing the door open in spite of Miss Porter's superior strategy,
and--I fear I must add, muscle also--and threw himself passionately at
Hornsby's throat, where he hung on and calmly awaited dissolution.
But he had, in the onset, driven Hornsby out into the road and the
moonlight.

"Here! Somebody take my lines." The voice was "Mountain Charley's," the
driver. The figure that jumped from the box and separated the struggling
men belonged to this singularly direct person.

"You're riding inside?" said Charley, interrogatively, to Cass. Before
he could reply Miss Porter's voice came from the window.