We peered over, and saw a bright-coloured mass among the rocks below—very still. Just at the time one of the ration-carriers came by with a spring cart. Mr. Falkland lifted his daughter in and took the reins, leaving his horse to be ridden home by the ration-carrier. As for us we rode back to the shearers’ hut, not quite so fast as we came, with Jim in the middle. He did not seem inclined to talk much.

“It’s lucky I turned round when I did, Dick,” he said at last, “and saw you making the ‘danger-look-out-sharp’ signal. I couldn’t think what the dickens it was. I was so cocksure of catching the mare in half-a-mile farther that I couldn’t help wondering what it was all about. Anyhow, I knew we agreed it was never to be worked for nothing, so thought the best thing I could do was to call in the mare and see if I could find out anything then. When I got alongside, I could see that Miss Falkland’s face was that white that something must be up. It weren’t the mare she was afraid of. She was coming back to her. It took something to frighten her, I knew. So it must be something I did not know, or didn’t see.

“’What is it, Miss Falkland?’ I said.

“ ‘Oh!’ she cried out,‘don’t you know? Another fifty yards and we’ll be over the Downfall where the trooper was killed. Oh, my poor father!’

“ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said.‘We’ll not go over if I can help it.’

“So I reached over and got hold of the reins. I pulled and jerked. She said her hands were cramped, and no wonder. Pulling double for a four-mile heat is no joke, even if a man’s in training. Fancy a woman, a young girl, having to sit still and drag at a runaway horse all the time. I couldn’t stop the brute; she was boring like a wild bull. So just as we came pretty close I lifted Miss Falkland off the saddle and yelled at old Brownie as if I had been on a cattle camp, swinging round to the near side at the same time. Round he came like one o’clock. I could see the mare make one prop to stop herself, and then go flying right through the air, till I heard a beastly ‘thud’ at the bottom.

“Miss Falkland didn’t faint, though she turned white and then red, and trembled like a leaf when I lifted her down, and looked up at me with a sweet smile, and said—

“ ‘Jim, you have paid me for binding up your wrist, haven’t you? You have saved me from a horrible death, and I shall think of you as a brave and noble fellow all the days of my life.’