"Do what?" he asked, utterly surprised.
"Drag me from my horse when I'd distanced the field! I wanted to be in at the death—all alone—by myself. I'd have won out except for your blundering. Never realized what you were attempting until you had hold of me."
A genuine disappointment tempered the flame in her dark eyes and the anger of her tone.
"But the sorrel was running away," Childress protested. "Don't you realize that you might have been——"
"The sorrel was running with the hounds as only Princess can run," she interrupted.
"Ma'am, your rein had broken and I was afraid——"
"I can't see in the least how that concerns a stranger," she flashed. "Did any one ask you to be afraid? Not I, at any rate. Down on the ranch I often ride Princess without any rein at all and she was obeying every knee signal I gave her until you crashed in."
A faint shout, succeeded by a chorus of the same, came from the crest of the rise which they just had topped so perilously. Childress looked over his shoulder to see a dozen well-mounted huntsmen and women gazing down at them.
"Oh—oh, they have seen!" cried his burden of beauty. "Set me down—instantly!"
A wilted feeling possessed the rescuer. In all good faith he had "run a beezer." The situation would not have been worse had he insisted on saving Annette Kellerman from drowning or putting out a fire consisting only of motion-picture smoke pots. With a groan for his distressing blunder, he lifted her down; then meekly followed her.