Page:BM Bower - Her Prairie Knight.djvu/94

 Redmond's horse go down upon his knees, and get up limping—and the sight filled him with ungenerous gladness; Sir Redmond was out of the race. It was Keith and Redcloud—they two; and Keith could smile over it.

He saw Beatrice's hat loosen and lift in front, flop uncertainly, and then go sailing away into the sage-brush, and he noted where it fell, that he might find it, later. Then he was close enough to see her face, and wondered that there was so little fear written there. Beatrice was plucky, and she rode well, her weight upon the bit; but her weight was nothing to the clinched teeth of the horse; and, though she had known it from the start, she was scarcely frightened. There was a good deal of the daredevil in Beatrice; she trusted a great deal to blind luck.

Just there the land was level, and she hoped to check him on the slope of the hill before them. She did not know it was moated like a castle, with a washout ten feet deep and twice that in width, and that what looked to her quite easy was utterly impossible.

Keith gained, every leap. In a moment he was close behind 92