Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/113

 breath came raggedly. Beaudry caught the bridle of the horse and followed her.

"Don't, please. You might hurt yourself," he urged.

She nodded. "All right. Bring the horse close to that big rock."

From the boulder she mounted without his help. Presently she asked a careless question.

"Why do you call him Cornell? Is it for the college?"

"Yes. I went to school there a year." He roused himself to answer with the proper degree of lightness. "At the ball games we barked in chorus a rhyme: 'Cornell I yell—yell—yell—Cornell.' That's how it is with this old plug. If I want to get anywhere before the day after to-morrow, I have to yell—yell—yell."

The young woman showed in a smile a row of white strong teeth. "I see. His real name is Day-After-To-Morrow, but you call him Cornell for short. Why not just Corn? He would appreciate that, perhaps."

"You 've christened him, Miss Rutherford. Corn he shall be, henceforth and forevermore."

They picked their way carefully down through the cañon and emerged from it into the open meadow. The road led plain, and straight to