“Lord, I wouldn’t tech a gal that could git the upperhand of a horse like that roan mare with a ten-foot pole,” half soliloquized the man at work over the bay.  “Wouldn’t have her if she owned half the township, an’ went down on her knees to me—­darned if I would.  Don’t want no woman that kin make horse-flesh like that knuckle under.  Guess a man wouldn’t have much show; hev to take his porridge ’bout the way she wanted to make it.  Whoa, there! stan’ still, can’t ye?  Darned if I want nothin’ to do with sech woman folks or sech horses as ye be.”

Dexter Beers moved laboriously out to the stable door and peered after Madelon, but she had disappeared in Parson Fair’s yard.  The white horse had gone up the road at a brisk trot, but she had easily kept pace with him.  She also harnessed him into the sleigh with no difficulty.  The animal seemed docile, and as if he were to belie his hard reputation.  There was, however, a proud and nervous cant to his old white head, and he set his jaw stiffly against his bit.

Dorothy came out in her quilted silk pelisse and her blue hood edged with swan’s-down, and got into the sleigh.  The black woman was keeping watch at the parson’s study door the while, but he never swerved from his hard application of the doctrines.  The sleigh slipped noiselessly out of the yard and up the road, for Madelon had not put on the bells.  The old white went rather stiffly and steadily for the first quarter-mile; then he made a leap forward with a great lift of his lean white flanks, and they flew.

Dorothy gave a terrified gasp.  “Don’t be frightened,” Madelon said.  “It’s the horse that used to beat everything in the county.  He’s old now, but when he gets warmed up he’s the fastest horse around for a short stretch.  He can’t hold out long, but while he does he goes; and I want to get a good start.  I want to strike the New Salem road as soon as I can.”

Madelon had a growing fear lest Eugene might have freed himself, and might ride the roan across by a shorter cut, and so intercept her at the turn into the New Salem road.  He might easily suspect her of attempting to see Burr again.  If she passed the turn first she could probably escape him if her horse held out; and, indeed, he might not think she had gone that way if he did not see her.

Dorothy held fast to the side of the sleigh, which seemed to rise from the track as they sped on.  “Don’t be frightened,” Madelon said again.  “This is the only horse in town that can beat my father’s on a short stretch, and I don’t know that he can always, but I don’t think he has been used, and father’s was ridden hard yesterday.  I can manage this one in harness better than I can father’s.  Don’t be frightened.”  But Dorothy’s face grew pale as the swan’s-down around it, and her great blue eyes were fixed fearfully upon the bounding heels and flanks of the old white race-horse.

Madelon strained her eyes ahead as they neared the turn of the New Salem road.  There was nobody in sight.  Then she glanced across the fields at the right.  Suddenly she swung out the reins over the back of the old white, and hallooed, and stood up in the sleigh.