fancy so, a complete encyclopaedia on everything useful. Anyway, from
the sound up yonder you will presently see some of the primitive habits
of the genus _bos_, and the spectacle may be the more interesting
because the beast will if possible head away up that valley into
fastnesses where only a prehistoric man with a tail could follow it."

Alice Deringham said nothing further and was glad of the rest. They
had pulled their horses up on the slope of a hill which formed one side
of a hollow out of which several valleys opened. There were great
trees about them, and it was only here and there a ray of sunlight
pierced the dim green shadow, while below them a stream went frothing
down a miniature canon whose banks were cumbered by fallen timber. It
was, the girl fancied, an especially difficult place for a horseman to
pick his way through.

Meanwhile the sound above grew louder, and presently an object
apparently travelling like a thunderbolt came out of the shadow. It
was, notwithstanding the speed it made, gambolling playfully, with head
tossed sideways and tail in the air, and when Miss Deringham fancied it
must turn aside for a tangled brake, went smashing straight through it.
As it emerged with an exultant flourish of head and tail two other
objects became visible behind it, and Seaforth pushed forward when the
mounted figures came sweeping down the mountain side. Here and there
they swung wide round a fallen tree, but they rode straight through
raspberry-canes and breast-high fern, and Alice Deringham wondered when
she saw that one of them was a girl. She had left her hat somewhere in
the bush, her hair streamed about her, the skirt was blown aside; but
she held on with set lips and two vivid spots of colour in her
warm-tinted face, a length or two behind her companion. He was riding
hard, and there was a red smear across his face where a branch had