BY DAVID GRAY
"It must have been highly interesting," observed Mrs. Archie Brawle; "so much pleasanter than a concert."
"Rather!" replied Lord Frederic. "It was ripping!"
Mrs. Ascott-Smith turned to Mr. Carteret. She had been listening to Lord Frederic Westcote, who had just come down from town where he had seen the Wild West show. "Is it so?" she asked. "Have you ever seen them?" By "them" she meant the Indians.
Mr. Carteret nodded.
"It seems so odd," continued Mrs. Archie Brawle, "that they should ride without saddles. Is it a pose?"
"No, I fancy not," replied Lord Frederic.
"They must get very tired without stirrups," insisted Mrs. Archie. "But perhaps they never ride very long at a time."
"That is possible," said Lord Frederic doubtfully. "They are only on about twenty minutes in the show."
Mr. Pringle, the curate, who had happened in to pay his monthly call upon Mrs. Ascott-Smith, took advantage of the pause. "Of course, I am no horseman," he began apprehensively, "and I have never seen the red Indians, either in their native wilds or in a show, but I have read not a little about them, and I have gathered that they almost live on horseback."