“Come away! come away! What are you saying, Hadyn? With Comet dying? For he is. Quick! help me. We must stop this! I’m afraid an artery is severed. Make a tourniquet of your handkerchief or something. Oh, do! do!” she urged, frantically.
“Oh, this is horrible! horrible! I would rather have him die a hundred deaths than have you pass through all this!” cried Hadyn, as he tied his handkerchief about the horse’s leg and sought to twist it tight enough to stop the flow. It was useless. It needed a stouter bandage than that. The girl saw this, and the next instant had unbuckled the bridle rein, and was kneeling and binding it around the leg above that ragged wound. Then quickly slipping her riding-crop through the loop with Hadyn’s assistance, she turned it tighter and tighter, and presently had the joy of seeing that red flow lessen. “Oh, for help! Is no one within a hundred miles of us?” she moaned. “Hold this, Hadyn, and let me ride for someone,” she cried.
“Constance! Never! Do you realize the state you are in?”—for the girl had given no thought to self in her excitement. One glance at her habit was enough.
“And do you think I would let you mount that mad brute? Had he not plunged aside, he, instead of Comet, would be lying before us this minute.
“Then you must go. Go at once, Hadyn. Ride to Pringle’s for the ambulance and help.”
“And leave you here alone on this mountain road with that horse, which may revive from this blow and struggle? Constance, are you mad?”
“No, I was never saner in all my life; but, unless you go, I shall. He won’t struggle; he knows my voice, and he is already too weak from this—this awful thing to try to struggle,” and she pointed shudderingly at the discolored earth. “Hadyn, dear, dear Hadyn, please, please go,” she implored, turning up to him a pair of eyes swimming in tears. “I shall know what to do. Oh, please trust me! Please, do!”
For one moment the man looked at the woman dearer to him than all the world beside, then stooping over her he rested his lips first upon one eyelid then the other, and said very, very gently:
“God bless and guard you, my darling. I shall go as quickly as that beast can take me, and I shall never forget this. Comet, Comet, old man, we’ve fought some tough fights; but this is the toughest of all,” and, bending over the horse, he ran his hand along the silky neck.
The faintest flutter of the nostrils acknowledged the caress, and the next second Hadyn had flung himself upon Lightfoot, and was riding down that mountain road at a pace which threatened destruction. Constance had never for a second lessened her firm hold upon the riding-crop, but her eyes followed the rider, and her lips murmured: