"This will never do!" gasped Ferris.
"Leave it to her!" commanded Burton.
At last, on top of a ridge, half a mile away, he reappeared. Three times shriller and shriller she blew, and now he came galloping toward them.
"Come in!" she commanded.
He came to her, and she caught him quickly by the collar.
"I told you I could handle him!" she said proudly.
But her eyes were dilated. She was quiet on the ride home. She was silent at the table.
Ferris joined his boss when the latter went to his room. Ferris stopped with the postmaster down the street, as he had stopped for twenty years when he was handling other men's dogs.
Ferris was depressed. That showing, he said, was terrible. If he bolted to-day, what would he do to-morrow, with another dog to spur him on and the crowd to excite him. They ought to do something—warn her, advise her.
Burton smoked away. "Suppose we just leave it to the girl, Ferris," he said quietly.