"_Hel_-lo!" cried Bert; "that looks like Brann."

"It is," said Maud.

"Cracky! that's a fine team--Black Hawks, both of them. I wonder if ol'

sorrel can pa.s.s 'em?"

"Oh, please don't try," pleaded the girl.

"Why not?"

"Because--because I'm afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Afraid something'll happen."

"Something _is_ goin' t' happen; I'm goin' t' pa.s.s him if old Bones has got any _git_ to him."

"It'll make him mad."

"Who mad? Brann?"

"Yes."

"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"

The teams moved along at an easy pace. Some one called to Brann:

"They're on y'r trail, Ed."

There was something peculiar in the tone, and Brann looked behind for the first time, and saw them. He swore through his teeth, and turned about. He looked dogged and sullen, with his bent shoulders and his chin thrust down.

There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and greetings pa.s.sed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man on the sidewalk said confidentially:

"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack-o'-bones just right, he'll distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im--I know 'im."

The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great red mouth open, his ears back. Brann and the young doctor of the place were turning together a little farther up the street. The blacks, superbly obedient to their driver, came down with flying hoofs, their great glossy b.r.e.a.s.t.s flecked with foam from their champing jaws.

"Come on, fellers!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the doctor, and seemed about to pa.s.s Albert and Maud. There was hate in the glare of his eyes.

But he did not pa.s.s. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's off black.

"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.

"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.

The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper.

As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.

These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was centered in them.

"Clear the track!" yelled the loafers.

"The doc's good f'r 'em."

"If she don't break."

Albert was pulling at the sorrel heavily, absorbed in seeing, as well as he could for the flung s...o...b..a.l.l.s, the doctor's mare draw slowly, foot by foot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up in his sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann gave a loud laugh; the blacks trotted on, their splendid pace unchanged.

"Let the sorrel out!" yelled somebody.

"Let him loose!" yelled Troutt on the corner, quivering with excitement.

"Let him go!"

Albert remembered what the fellow had said; he let the reins loose. The old sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and his tail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Brann yelled:

"Sam--Saul, _git_!"

"See them trot!" shouted Bert, lost in admiration; but Maud, frightened into silence, had covered her head with the robe to escape the blinding cloud of flying snow. The sorrel drew steadily ahead; he was pa.s.sing when Brann turned.

"Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid the whip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange to say, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck at him, but missed him, and the stroke fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He turned to see what Brann meant by it; he did not see that the blacks were crowding him to the gutter; his hands felt numb.

"Look _out_, there!"

Before he could turn to look, the cutter seemed to be blown up by a bomb, and he rose in the air like a vaulter; he saw the traces part, he felt the reins slip through his hands, and that was all; he seemed to fall an immeasurable depth into a black abyss.... The next that he knew was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of which a sweet, agonized girl-voice broke, familiar but unrecognized:

"Oh, where's the doctor! He's dead--oh, he's dead! _Can't_ you hurry?"

Next came a quick, authoritative voice, still far away, and a hush followed it; then an imperative order:

"Stand out o' the way! What do you think you can do by crowding on top of him?"

"Stand back! stand back!" other voices called.

Then he felt something cold on his head: they were taking his cap off and putting snow on his head; then the doctor (he knew him now) said:

"Let me take him!"

"Oh, can't I do something?" said the sweet voice.

"No--nothing."

Then there came a strange fullness in his head. Shadows lighted by dull red flashes pa.s.sed before his eyes; he wondered, in a slow, dull way, if he were dying. Then this changed: a dull, throbbing ache came into his head, and as this grew the noise of voices grew more distinct and he could hear sobbing. Then the dull, rhythmic red flashes pa.s.sed slowly away from his eyes, and he opened his lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he saw only Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, looking down into his. He felt the doctor's hands winding bandages about his head, and he felt a crawling stream of blood behind his ear, getting as cold as ice as it sank under his collar.

They raised him a little more, and he opened his eyes on the circle of hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, with wild, scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads of the crowd.

"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.

"Can you hear us? Albert, do you know me?" called the girl.