Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/99

 for a moment she lay panting and helpless.

She was aroused by Shep. The faithful old dog had not been killed. Limping and whining, he had followed her in her flight and dragged himself through the fence. Still whining plaintively, he was licking her face.

With a sobbing cry, she seized the fence and pulled herself to her feet. Still baiting the bull, the young man was dodging round and round the tree, the enraged beast making every effort to reach him. He had kept his word; he had held the attention of the animal while she escaped; the handsome stranger she had called a coward had taken this dreadful risk for her.

Realizing the danger he was in, she called to him wildly: "Oh, look out—look out! Jump—quick! Run! Do something!"

He certainly was doing something; in fact, he was an extremely busy person just then. Again and again he appeared to avoid the rushes of the bull barely by a hair's breadth. Each time this happened the girl's heart seemed ready to burst with terror. It could not last long. The snorting, bellowing beast would get him at last. A slight miscalculation, the slightest slip, and it would all be over.

Bessie Wiggin grasped a stake of the fence, and tried desperately to tear it loose, intending to return to the assistance of the stranger with this weapon. She was the coward, after all! She had run away and left him to be killed!

Then she saw him "put over" a bit of strategy on the bull. The animal had paused for a moment, and turned slowly upon him, pawing the ground. Instead of placing the tree between himself and danger, the man planted his back against it, his eyes never leaving the beast for an instant.

Waving his hands in gestures of disdain, he taunted the creature. "Come on, old lumberheels! Wake up and show a little pep! Throw into high gear and give us some speed. Don't quit now; the fun's just begun. Wake up! Come on!"

The bull leaped forward like a hurricane. And just as the pale and horrified girl expected to see the man impaled to the tree, he slipped deftly behind it. The head of the bull crashed against the oak, and the animal staggered as if struck by a butcher's maul.

The stranger laughed. "That ought to give you a slight headache," he said.

"Run!" cried the girl. "This way—quick! Now's the time!"

Dazed, the bull was backing off slowly, shaking his head. Evidently the man agreed with Bessie that the moment was propitious, for he turned and raced toward the fence. But the animal had not been injured nearly as much as one might have supposed, and, seeing his mocking foe in flight, he plunged in pursuit.

The stranger was fleet-footed, but the bull was a trifle fleeter. Just as the runner gathered himself to take the fence with one clean leap, the beast overtook him. Through the air sailed the man, propelled by the head and horns of the bull, as well as by the spring of his own legs. Over the fence in a great curve he came, crashing head downward amid the rocks and bushes.

When the young man opened his eyes again, he discovered that his head was resting in the lap of Miss Bessie Wiggin, who, sobbing hysterically, was wiping his forehead with a bloodstained handkerchief.

He looked up at her and smiled. "Daphne!" he whispered.

"Reginald!" she cried.

OU'RE not killed, are you?" she sobbed, trying to stanch the flow of blood that trickled from a gash at the edge of his hair near his temple.