“You’ll have him in a league, Harry.  Another horse ready at Thomson’s ranch.”

Alice Deringham held her breath as, while a third beat of hoofs grew louder behind, Alton gathered up the bridle and drove his heels home.  The horse, frightened by the clamour, reared almost upright and then backed across the trail, while the girl wondered with a tense anxiety whether the man would look up.  Then for just a second he turned his head, and saw her standing on the verandah with a blaze in her cheeks and a dimness in her eyes.

“Off with you, Harry, and remember you’re riding for all of us and Somasco,” cried somebody.

[Illustration:  “Remember you’re riding for all of us and Somasco,” cried somebody.]

Alton had the beast’s head up the trail now, but as he sent his heels home he swung up his right hand, and the girl smiled down on him bravely out of misty eyes.

“And for Carnaby,” he cried.  “I can’t be beaten.”

Then the horse shot forward, and he was away, his torn shirt fluttering as the wind rushed past, while Alice Deringham hastened to the end of the verandah with Forel to see the last of him just as another man rode in at a floundering gallop.

The trail led straight beneath the pines, and her heart throbbed painfully while she watched the second rider closing with the one in front of him, until the two figures became blurred before her eyes, and she turned suddenly cold.

“He’s fouling him,” cried somebody, and a roar of execrations went up.  “Both of them for the same company.  The condemned jumper’s right across the trail.”

There was silence once more, and the two objects seemed to rush together, then another roar went up.

“Down.  Oh, yes, the jumper’s down.  Harry rode straight into him—­the fool might have known his horse was blown.  The other one’s used up.  Somasco’s leading clear again.”

Alice Deringham was trembling visibly, and knew that Mrs. Forel’s eyes were upon her, but that did not seem to count at all.  She could see a figure standing over a fallen horse up the trail, while another that had already left it far behind was sinking into the shadow of the pines.  The jumper was beaten, but Alton was riding still—­for Somasco and Carnaby—­with a fresh horse beneath him.

Then she turned to Mrs. Forel with a softness in her eyes which somewhat astonished the elder lady.

“I should like to go back to Somasco now,” she said.  “I am a little tired, and I know that he will win.”

A wagon was awaiting them, and Forel several times came near overturning it in his excitement as he drove them home to the ranch.

It was a week later when one evening the leading inhabitants of the district assembled in Somasco ranch.  Those who were married had brought their wives with them, and the cook and Mrs. Margery had toiled since morning to set out the table in a fashion befitting the occasion, for the chief roads and trails surveyor and a member of the Provincial Government were to be entertained that evening.