“Come, let us go,” she said, almost in a whisper.

She caught her breath in a half-sob, then tightened her lips as she rose.  His face was white to ghastliness, so shaken was he by the struggle through which he had passed.  They did not look at each other, but walked directly to the horses.  She leaned against Dolly’s neck while he tightened the girths.  Then she gathered the reins in her hand and waited.  He looked at her as he bent down, an appeal for forgiveness in his eyes; and in that moment her own eyes answered.  Her foot rested in his hands, and from there she vaulted into the saddle.  Without speaking, without further looking at each other, they turned the horses’ heads and took the narrow trail that wound down through the sombre redwood aisles and across the open glades to the pasture-lands below.  The trail became a cow-path, the cow-path became a wood-road, which later joined with a hay-road; and they rode down through the low-rolling, tawny California hills to where a set of bars let out on the county road which ran along the bottom of the valley.  The girl sat her horse while the man dismounted and began taking down the bars.

“No—­wait!” she cried, before he had touched the two lower bars.

She urged the mare forward a couple of strides, and then the animal lifted over the bars in a clean little jump.  The man’s eyes sparkled, and he clapped his hands.

“You beauty! you beauty!” the girl cried, leaning forward impulsively in the saddle and pressing her cheek to the mare’s neck where it burned flame-color in the sun.

“Let’s trade horses for the ride in,” she suggested, when he had led his horse through and finished putting up the bars.  “You’ve never sufficiently appreciated Dolly.”

“No, no,” he protested.

“You think she is too old, too sedate,” Lute insisted.  “She’s only sixteen, and she can outrun nine colts out of ten.  Only she never cuts up.  She’s too steady, and you don’t approve of her—­no, don’t deny it, sir.  I know.  And I know also that she can outrun your vaunted Washoe Ban.  There!  I challenge you!  And furthermore, you may ride her yourself.  You know what Ban can do; so you must ride Dolly and see for yourself what she can do.”

They proceeded to exchange the saddles on the horses, glad of the diversion and making the most of it.

“I’m glad I was born in California,” Lute remarked, as she swung astride of Ban.  “It’s an outrage both to horse and woman to ride in a sidesaddle.”

“You look like a young Amazon,” the man said approvingly, his eyes passing tenderly over the girl as she swung the horse around.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“All ready!”

“To the old mill,” she called, as the horses sprang forward.  “That’s less than a mile.”

“To a finish?” he demanded.

She nodded, and the horses, feeling the urge of the reins, caught the spirit of the race.  The dust rose in clouds behind as they tore along the level road.  They swung around the bend, horses and riders tilted at sharp angles to the ground, and more than once the riders ducked low to escape the branches of outreaching and overhanging trees.  They clattered over the small plank bridges, and thundered over the larger iron ones to an ominous clanking of loose rods.