Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the
hood, where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it
unrolled behind them. But they were no longer to enjoy their
former leisurely progress. The new whip lashed his horses into a
gallop, and the trees flew past them on either hand.

``Do you remember that chap in the `Last Ride Together'?'' said
Clay.
``I and my mistress, side by side,
Shall be together--forever ride,
And so one more day am I deified.
Who knows--the world may end to-night.''

Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she
would embrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around
them.

``Oh, no,'' she laughed. ``To-night the world has just begun.''

The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the
box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld
MacWilliams beating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door
opened for an inch, and there was a long debate in Spanish, and
finally the door was closed again, and a light appeared through
the windows. A few minutes later a man and woman came out of the
hut, shivering and yawning, and made a fire in the sun-baked oven
at the side of the house. Hope and Clay remained seated in the
carriage, and watched the flames springing up from the oily
fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of pine,
pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of