"Now which of you's tryin' to humbug us this year?" asked the old
man, laughing, while Jack looked round and proceeded, as he said,
to "count noses."

This was a useless attempt, for half the party that had sat up to
wait for the New Year had already disappeared.

Dick sprang to the window and threw it open, but the night was
cloudy and dark.

Again came the notes of the horn, floating in through the open
window, and almost at the same moment there was a sound of hoofs
crunching the gravel of the drive as a dozen or more animals swept
past at wild gallop.

"This is past a joke," cried Jack. "I never heard of the old hunt
materializing in any such way as this."

They rushed to the front door--Jack, Mr. Connolly, all of them.
Harold reached it first. Wrenching it open, he stood on the step,
while the others crowded about him and peered out into the night.
Only darkness, rendered mirker by the lights in the hall; and from
the distance, fainter now, came the measured beat of the galloping
hoofs.

No other sound? Yes, a long-drawn, quivering, piteous sigh; and as
their eyes grew more accustomed to the night, out of the darkness
something white shaped itself--something prone and helpless,
lying on the gravel beneath the lowest step. They did not stop to