“All right. It’s a race. You know what the stake is—and I’m bound to win!”
After that Hilda felt that there was nothing for it but to arrive among the lights and people at Grainger’s before her escort. They would have a late moon, but the night had begun to darken. In the trail there was small danger from dog holes, and her pony was carrying less weight than his. Still she thought longingly of a short-cut as she heard swift hoofs behind her, and leaned down, using voice and touch of the heel, with a good horsewoman’s objection to punishing her horse.
It was Fayte’s temper which won the race for her, after all; he slashed his pony with the quirt, and it began to buck, wheeling head for tail. By the time he had it settled once more into its pace, Hilda was nearly a mile ahead of him.
She slowed up when she felt safe to do so, and even waited for Fayte at the edge of the crowd outside the Grainger yard, so that they rode through the gate together. As he lifted her from her pony, she said to him in an undertone,
“I won, but you had no right to say what you did—we weren’t racing for any stakes.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t win,” Fayte laughed at her. “That race isn’t over. We’ll finish it on the way home.”
And at that moment Maybelle rode in—alone.
“I like the way you two ran off and left me,” she said as she got down from her pony without her brother’s assistance.
“Who was that with you?” Hilda asked in her nervousness.
“There wasn’t any one with me,” Maybelle returned placidly. “You and Fayte rode off like two wild Indians. I wasn’t going to run my pony lame—I need him to ride home on.”