Cortland Bent had refused to relinquish his post beside Camilla. There seemed no reason why he should, since Gretchen had so completely appropriated Larry, and Jeff, Mrs. Cheyne.
"Be careful, Camilla," he was saying. "You're new at this game, and the going is none too safe."
But Camilla only smiled. She looked forward at Mrs. Cheyne's intolerant back, and there was a joyous flash in her eyes like the one he remembered two years ago when she led the chase of a coyote, which she ran down and roped unaided. She leaned forward gaily and patted her horse's neck.
"We understand each other, don't we, Mackinaw?"
And then, as though to express her emancipation from all earthly barriers, she gave her horse his head in the pasture and followed a party which had scorned the open gate. Mackinaw took the three rails like a bird and shook his head viciously when Camilla restrained him. Cortland followed her, smiling, and in a moment they had all stopped at the foot of the hill, while the hounds went forward into the cover.
Janney had planned well. They waited a while, chatting among themselves, and then suddenly the hounds gave tongue. At the farther end of the cover, taking a diagonal course across an old cornfield up the hill, the old fox emerged, while the hounds, getting the scent, followed hot-foot after him.
"Tally-ho!" was the cry from one of the whips, and it echoed again and again the length of the field. In a second they were off, Curtis Janney in the lead, roaring some instructions which nobody understood. Camilla, overanxious, cleared the brook at a bound and won her way among the leaders. Gretchen Janney and Mrs. Cheyne, their horses well in hand, were a little to the left, following the Master, whose knowledge of the lay of the land foresaw that the run would follow the ridge which farther on turned to the eastward. Camilla only knew that she must ride straight, and went forward up the hill toward the line of bushes around which the last hound had disappeared. Bent thundered after her, watching her anxiously as she took the fence at the top of the hill—a tall one—and landed safely in the stubble beyond.
"Pull up a little, Camilla!" he shouted. "You'll blow him if you don't. This may last all morning."
"I—I can't!" she cried. "He's pulling me. He doesn't want to stop, and neither do I."
"It's the twenty pounds of under weight—but you'd better use your curb."