bringing any fleet steeds to us. No doubt he is at this moment laughing
with his dissolute companions, because we are sitting out here in the dark
like two silly chickens!"

"I think he's coming now," Manley said rather stiffly. "Of course, I don't
ask you to like him; but he's putting himself to a good deal of trouble for
us, and--"

"Wasted effort, so far as I am concerned," Valeria put in, with a chirpy
accent which was exasperating, even to a bridegroom very much in love with
his bride.

In the darkness that muffled the land, save where the yellow flare of lamps
in the little town made a misty brightness, came the click of shod hoofs.
Another moment and a man, mounted upon a white horse, loomed indistinct
before them, seeming to take substance from the night. Behind him trailed
another horse, and for the first time in her life Valeria heard the soft,
whispering creak of saddle leather, the faint clank of spur chains, and the
whir of a horse mouthing the "cricket" in his bit. Even in her anger, she
was conscious of an answering tingle of blood, because this was life in
the raw--life such as she had dreamed of in the tight swaddlings of a smug
civilization, and had longed for intensely.

Kent swung down close beside them, his form indistinct but purposeful. "I'm
late, I guess," he remarked, turning to Fleetwood. "Fred got next, somehow,
and--I was detained."

"Where is he?" asked Manley, going up and laying a questioning hand upon
the horse, by that means fully recognizing it as Kent's own.