Part 24 (1/2)

”I didn't know you were such an accomplished horseman,” said Marion.

”Didn't you? Well, you see--”

At that instant the pony suffered a fresh access of alarm. He bounded suddenly sideways, and at the same time ducked as if he purposed to stand on his head, though what good that would have done only he knew.

The movement threw Smythe over the pony's head, and flat on his back in the dust; and in a twinkling Peanuts was das.h.i.+ng up the road, with his tail in the air, and the stirrups flapping at his sides.

For some seconds Smythe lay half-stunned; but before Marion and Hillyer, leaping from the automobile, were able to reach him, he sat up, and began to straighten out his crushed sombrero, eyeing it critically. He was covered with dust, and one end of his white collar, torn from the b.u.t.ton, stuck out above his coat. But his aplomb was perfect.

”As I was saying, when interrupted,” he began, continuing to minister to the sombrero, ”you see I am an accomplished horseman.”

Marion and Hillyer broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Then Hillyer hastened to a.s.sist Smythe to rise.

”Not hurt, I hope?” said Robert.

”Objectively, no. Subjectively, yes. Sartorially, a wreck.”

They laughed now without restraint, which seemed to please Smythe immensely. He proceeded to tuck the end of the torn collar back into its place, where it refused to stay; to brush his clothes; to adjust the abused sombrero in exactly the long-studied angle on his head.

”I hope you'll forgive us for laughing,” said Marion, ”but--”

”Say no more about it, please!” protested Smythe. ”I'd rather make you laugh than weep--a.s.suming that anybody would weep for me.”

”Oh, I'd have felt very badly if you'd been hurt,” Marion a.s.sured him.

”And you might have been, too.”

”No, a cropper like that's nothing. Peanuts isn't--” He paused just a second to look into Marion's eyes with an expression that arrested her attention sharply. ”Peanuts isn't Sunnysides.”

”Sunnysides?” she cried out unguardedly.

Smythe's eyes warned her, as he waited to give her time for self-control. He did not know how far Hillyer was in her confidence.

”Is there news--about--Sunnysides?” she faltered, struggling desperately with herself.

”Yes,” he answered. Then he continued slowly, in as light a manner as possible, the while he held her with a concentrated gaze: ”I'd been down the valley as far as the mouth of the canyon. Coming back, about two miles below where Haig's road joins this, I saw the sorrels in a cloud of dust. 'h.e.l.lo!' I said. 'Something's up, or the sorrels wouldn't be driven like that.' In a minute or two I made out Bill Craven, one of Haig's men, leaning forward in the seat of a road wagon, and laying on the whip. 'If Haig saw that!' I thought. And so I--”

”Go on, please!” said Marion shrilly.

But Smythe was purposely deliberate; for he saw Hillyer looking at her curiously.

”I wasn't going to let anybody abuse his horses if I could prevent it.

Besides, how did I know but Craven was stealing the sorrels? I threw my pony straight across the road. Craven reined the sorrels up on their hind legs, almost on top of me.

”'What in h.e.l.l?' he yelled.

”'That's what I want to know,' I answered.

”'Can't you see I'm in a hurry, d.a.m.n you?' he shouted angrily.