Part 2

Three young men had the light oak table drawn up before them. The books from it were flung on the foot of the narrow white-iron bed: the table-cover hung on the brass foot-rod.

One of the men leaned back in Lawson's Morris chair, another was seated a-straddle the only other chair the room contained, his chin resting on the high back. A third was on the trunk pulled close to the table.

"Room!" he cried, pointing to the vacant half.

"Throw some coal on, Frank, it's chilly. By George, you look cold yourself."

"Cold! I'm frozen!" Lawson's laugh was not the most pleasant thing to hear.

"Where have you been? Land alive, look at him!"

"Shut up!" Lawson flung his Prince Albert over the books, crushing the chrysanthemum he had fastened in his button-hole so carefully earlier in the evening.

"Game?" he queried.

"I should say so, trot 'em out!" There was a box of cigars on the mantel. He lit one, the rest were already smoking.

"Helped ourselves, you see!"

"Anything else?"

"Listen to him!"

"That's the stuff, set it here!" The cards were shuffled away for the bottle and glasses. The window curtains were drawn tightly, the door was closed and the portière hung in stiff folds across it; the coal snapped in the grate and the young men settled down for the evening.

But Frances was not winding up her own affairs so nearly to her mind. The professor had lain down his book as soon as the guest departed. "Daughter," he began uneasily, "I didn't know you knew Mr. Lawson."

Frances looked at him in astonishment. "Why--how--" she stammered.

"Somehow, he's different from most of the students here," her father went on, putting his half-framed opinion into words; "he's older and he looks a man of the world, and he's not over studious," he added a little sarcastically.

Frances after her first start was listening quietly to his broken speech.

"These older men," the professor went on, "if they don't come for good hard work, they--they are the most troublesome kind we have to deal with. The young fellows, now, they have their faults, but they are the faults of youth. When these older men graft their knowledge of the world to their students' folly--well--well--" he was silent for a moment.

Frances, without the slightest wish to defend the absent, sat silent likewise.

"He's rich too; his father owns immense lumber tracts in Oregon, and his people live in great style, and--I scarcely know--He's in none of my classes. But, somehow, he doesn't seem-- I wonder you invited him."

"I didn't."

"Didn't! Why--"

"Oh, daddy, it sort of happened. I'm not anxious to have it happen any more."

"Well, neither am I, now that I think of it. Going to bed?"

"I'm sleepy as a cat--no! as the Sleeping Beauty!" saucily.

"I believe you always are!" The professor never knew at what hour he crept to bed, but his daughter's sleepy-headedness was a constant jest. He never failed to pause at the threshold of her door and listen to the deep, long breaths of her slumber and to feel warmed to his heart's core to know she was there, his own daughter, the joy of his life.

"Good night!" She leaned over him, rumpling his dark hair. "Why, there's the telephone! What can it be so late?" She was hurrying along the hall.

"Hello!"

The father turned to watch with lazy interest the lithe figure and bright face and bent head, as she stood, red lips pressed together, the receiver at her ear.

"Ah!" she breathed ecstatically into the 'phone.

"Where did you catch him?"

"To-day!"

"To-morrow!"

"Eight o'clock?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"If father will let me," with one imploring glance fatherward.

"Yes, in a moment, wait!"

"Father, they are going to have a fox-hunt to-morrow--Orange Grove, you know--meet at eight o'clock. Mr. Payne bought the fox from a colored boy to-day, he has it out at his house. They are going to turn it loose on the hill. It's a big red fox, he says." She slipped down on the side of his chair.

"Great Heavens! You don't want to go?"

Frances never answered, she only held on to him a little tighter.

"Frances, you know, since--"

"Starlight did behave dreadfully that time," she assented.

"Starlight!"

"Suppose I ask Mr. Payne to let me have a mount?"

"Daughter," the father was speaking quite sternly, "you know I told you I never wanted you to ride behind the hounds again."

There was dead silence. Frances got to her feet and went over to the mantelpiece, eyes downcast, red mouth down-curved.

"You might drive out to the meet," began her father.

A flash of her eyes answered him.

"I'll order the trap right now!" she said quickly.

"Now, it's late!" began the professor, not liking to be taken so literally at his word. "I don't think there is any one at the stables."

"Mr. Payne telephoned from there; I told him to wait a moment. I'll try again."

The professor listened anxiously to the whir and then to the monologue in the hall.

"Is Mr. Carver there? Yes! So glad!" and then, after a minute's wait, "Can you send Starlight and the trap up by seven? _Seven?_ Yes! And Mr. Carver, please see that he is hitched up strongly, will you?"

She hung up the receiver. At the foot of the stairs she paused. "You don't mind if I drive along the road and follow them a little if I can, do you?" she asked laughingly.

The professor ran his hand over his perplexed face and picked up his book; he had no answer. At any rate he felt he had had his say about young Lawson and so he must not be too severe about this. He little knew he had given that young man the very clue he needed: for some hour of that night when the stars grew pale and the gay party in Lawson's room was breaking up, one of the men vowed he must have an hour's sleep to steady his nerves for the fox-hunt to-morrow; it was Saturday, and--

"Fox-hunt," cried Lawson.

"Yes; want to go? Meet me at the stables!" and it was arranged then and there.

The fox-hunt was sufficient, but Lawson's last waking thoughts were the professor's words, spoken carelessly that evening, "Frances hasn't missed a fox-hunt for years."

III

At seven o'clock Frances was warming her cold fingers over Susan's red-hot stove and making some show of drinking the coffee and eating the toasted roll the old darkey, with much grumbling, had gotten ready.

"Don't see what yuh wants to go trapsin' off for dis time o' day, nohow, ridin' arter dem hounds. Dey's low down dogs, anyhow; always did 'spise er houn' ebin ef 'tis chasin' er fox."

"Pshaw, Susan, you know you don't know anything about it!" bantered Frances.

"Don't, don't I? Well, I 'spec I knows sumpin' 'bout de time dey brought you home las' wintah laid out in a drag wid de blood all ober yo does an' dat cut right up dyar, right on de forehead; little more to de lef, an' yuh wou'dn't be standin' hyar; an' yo' hyar jes does hide de scar now. Tell yuh, honey," she went on solicitously, coming up close to Frances, "young gals cyarnt tek no chances wid de looks nohow, dat's a fac'! Don't go smash yo'self up!"

"There's the trap!" cried Frances, delighted to put an end to such forebodings. "Good-by; give father a nice breakfast!" and she went running out into the hall.

She opened the heavy outer door softly. The frosty air struck her like a blow. She looked over her shoulder. Susan was not watching her off. She ran back and swooped down on the black skin rug at the foot of the polished stair and flung it over her arm.

"Just like them to put a linen robe in the trap this morning! I would freeze."

She closed the big door quietly. Her father was asleep. Outside, the long corridor stretched deserted and dusky; the quadrangle was in heavy shadow; the white frost glittered on the grass, on the edge of the brick pavement to the corridor, and on the balcony rails running from house to house overhead; the scarlet and yellow leaves drifted from the maples; the young girl caught a whirl of them in her long skirt and carried them rustling in her train as she hurried along. Starlight was tied to the rail outside the quadrangle and she laughed as she saw the linen robe.

"I'm ahead of them this time!" she said to herself as she stood up and folded the great rug about her and turned up the fur collar of her coat and snapped the heavy driving-gloves on her wrists. The mountain air was cold at that hour, the tingle of it was in Starlight's blood as well as in his driver's. He gave a few friskings of balancing on his hind legs and pawing with the others wildly in air before he settled down to business. Frances, turning her head for fear Susan would see, had one swift gleam of the old darkey's wrinkled, anxious face at an upstairs window, watching her off, after all. She had only a glimpse, Starlight, his head tucked down far as his rein allowed, was tearing down the drive.

She took the short cut this time; down the steep hill beneath the lower quadrangle where the buildings towered straight overhead like a sheer precipice crowned with white, and flecked with scarlet where the ivy crept; out by the curving road from whence she glimpsed the far-off crests of the Ragged Mountains showing the morning light upon their tawny sides; through the town, for a short distance, and then sharply off to a country road.

The trap bumped and jostled. Sparks flew from Starlight's heels when they pounded the rough rocks; sparks flew from the wheels as they rolled over rock and hard red clay. Down in the valley, where the mist still clung like a veil above the clear brown stream, the little plank bridge rattled loudly as they flew over; and now, as they breasted the long high hill beyond, the frosty air echoed with the clear mellow music of a horn wound lustily and with the deep impatient bayings of the hounds. Frances leaned over the dashboard and shook the reins impatiently.

"Get up, Starlight!" she cried.

Again the horn wound its call--clear, shrill, the soul note of the frosty morning. Frances turned her head; behind her were horsemen clattering down the way; on the road which met hers at the hill-top she could hear the sharp sounds of beating hoofs. The sun was rolling up the gray clouds on the horizon's edge, and the blue vault overhead, with slow reluctance, was throwing off the soft veil of fleecy clouds; the gray of the early autumn morning was changing to opalescent hues above the mountain tops.

The horsemen behind were closer, were abreast of her; she turned to see Lawson on one side, his fellow-student on the other.

"Going to ride?" Lawson called, with a mischievous glance at the heavy trap.

Frances shook her head, outwardly she was gay enough, inwardly she was fuming.

Lawson's mount was irreproachable, so were his clothes.

"Heard we went fox-hunting up here before he came," accused Frances mentally; "got them all ready for the occasion."

But in truth Lawson was not conscious at all. He had lost his head, as every one else was doing, at the clattering hoof-beats and the insistent clarion-callings of the horn and the wild, impatient bayings of the hounds.

On the plateau cresting the hill-top, the whole scene burst upon his view; roads from many directions met and intersected beneath the oaks, on all of them hunters were hurrying--women, men, dogs. Beyond showed the white façade of Orange Grove, the fence before the lawn lined with carriages.

Frances was earlier than she thought. She turned in the road behind the master of the hounds, who, grown too stout for riding, had a nag and a buggy could race on any mountain-road. He leaned out and called back to her.

"What are you driving for?"

"Father wouldn't let me ride!"

"Well, you can trot behind me," he laughed.

As they drove past the front of the house, the big gate beyond the stable-yard was flung open and the whole train, horsemen, carriages, dogs, swept out on the open rolling hillside beyond.

The master of the hounds drew off to the left.

"Leave a space there! Clear the way there! That's where the fox will be started!"

The crowd followed them to the field side.

Lawson rode up to the trap. "What are they going to do?" he asked in bewilderment.

Frances looked at him uncomprehendingly. She had been calling gay badinage to one and another of those about her.

"Where are they going to start the fox? Don't you let the dogs--"

"Oh!" with a long intonation of comprehension, "why, we've got the fox with us; first catch your fox, you know--"

"Who--where?"

"Why, Mr. Payne has him. Every boy in the county knows he will pay a big price for a fox. They have their traps out and when they catch one they bring it in to him, and then--" a comprehensive wave of her hand finished the sentence.

"The dogs--" began Lawson, still unenlightened.

"Oh they put the dogs up in the stables, don't you see? Watch them!" she turned in the trap seat and Lawson wheeled his horse.

A boy stood guard at the stable door. One by one their masters were coaxing and coercing the dogs inside. Their calls echoed all over the field. "Here, Dixie!" "Here, Duke!" and now and then an impatient master wound his horn to call his dogs to his feet, whereat every dog inside the big echoing stable went fairly mad with barking.

"H-e-r-e, M-u-s-i-c!" "H-e-r-e, S-a-l!" Two frisky dogs were careering down the hillside, their masters in wild pursuit.

"There they go, the two worst dogs in the county!" cried Frances impatiently.

"And the two best hunters, once they are started!" declared Mr. Payne.

Lawson, tired of the dogs' antics, turned his attention to the scene about him. The hill rolled from where they waited down to a wide stream at its foot. It was waste land, and the long grasses were deeply green or purple with seed-pods or browned with sering weeds; down by the stream was a tangle, scarlet and yellow leaved, and gray and purple-stemmed, a tangle of sumach and blackberry and bramble; and beyond, on the climbing land, was the great forest where the pine showed vivid green and the chestnut flared like gold in the sunshine gilding the hillside and pricking out all its colorings--the oaks' persistent russet, the changing hues of the tangled undergrowth.

About him were riders of every description; smart vehicles filled with bright-faced women, the farmer in top-boots astride his nag, the Englishman from his fancy stock farm in the country hard by on his bobtailed horse and wearing the toggery of his irreproachable hunting outfit, women in jackets or long skirts on skittish-looking steeds, and women in tailor-made habits exact in set and fit, with stiff derbies on their smooth hair and heavy crops in their hands.

The hounds were all prisoned at last. The men who had dismounted hurried to their horses. Those who had not, settled themselves in their saddles. In the tense silence all the sounds of the morning could be heard, the deep breathings of the horses, the creakings of the saddles, even the wind stealing through the grasses and singing in the trees of the forest across the way and the gurgling of the stream about the rocks in its bed.

Mr. Payne got nimbly out of his buggy, holding a big bag of burlap, with a squirming something inside. He walked to the middle of the cleared space and laid the tied bag down carefully, the mouth turned to the hillside. He bent over the cords. There was a sharp, triumphant bark.

"Good Lord!" he groaned as he snatched up the bag, tossed it over his shoulders and ran for his buggy.

Music and Sal had nosed wildly around in the stable until they had found a loose board, had broken cover, and were baying their triumph to the countryside, a dozen venturers at their heels. The boy who guarded the door was pressing the board against the other prisoners and calling loudly for help.

"Oh!" groaned Frances, "they've got it all to go over again!" and she settled back in the trap in comic despair.

Lawson by this time was growing impatient. He was used to seeing things differently managed. He was concluding secretly that this boasted Virginia fox-hunting was somewhat overrated. Music and Sal still bayed upon the hillside.

Mr. Payne, bag in hand came up to the trap. "Want to see him," he whispered.

Frances nodded delightedly.

"He's a beauty!" He unfastened the bag carefully and peering down into it she saw first a red fluffy curl and then two big jewel-bright eyes, looking pathetically scared.

"Ah!" she said, pityingly.

"A red fox!" cried Mr. Payne enthusiastically, "a genuine red fox!"

But Frances had no bright answer ready; she was seeing just two dark scared eyes and that big fluff of a tail curled about the pointed face. The hunt did not seem as joyous as a moment ago. She did not notice that the baying had ceased, that Mr. Payne had gotten again from his buggy with his burden, and then her startled eyes saw a flash of reddish yellow straight down the hillside, a flying leap across the stream and a swift taking to cover.

She heard Mr. Payne's "Quick, pull in behind me!" as he drove out to the middle of the field. She saw the riders range to left to right, she saw the fringe of carriages by the fence corner where the sober ones waited to see the start; but she, in the trap, was close behind the toughest rider in the country. She heard the snapping of the watches in the tense silence and the low "How many minutes?"

"Seven!" cried Mr. Payne, thrusting his watch in his pocket and standing up in his buggy. He waved his arm.

"Turn out the hounds!"

And then Frances forgot everything. She was driving down the roadless hillside swift as the wind. The trap lurched to right to left. The wind cut her cheek. Horsemen dashed past. The hounds were almost underfoot, running straight; the chorus of their voices filled all the echoing valley. The stream was crossed with a swift splash. The nag ahead was running straight up-hill and Starlight was following. The wheels struck a rock and jolted her to her knees; she slid back on the seat again. The riders were in the woods now, but their course lay straight as the road ran. Fences and woods and fields of stacked corn and wayside cabins slid past, but they kept the pace.

Then Starlight went more slowly, the heavy trap was telling on him; the gray nag and her driver were nearly out of sight, the driver waving an impatient hand at the loiterer as he sped around the last turning. Worse too, the baying was growing less and less distinct; she urged Starlight on. He gave a burst of speed, the wheels went rolling over a rock, and in a breath the trap was going down--down--and Frances rolled quite easily into the dry ditch.

For a moment she lay still, dazed. She watched the deep, intense, blue of the sky overhead and the screen of oak branches against it and the buzzards floating lazily high up in ether. She stretched her limbs and found them unhurt, and then she turned her head on her arm. "Father will never let me go again!" she moaned. She got to her feet. "I wonder what is the matter, anyway!" she muttered; but the trouble was easy enough to see. The violent wrench had turned the wheel inside out and broken every spoke off short at the hub.

Starlight, head turned, was looking behind him reproachfully.

"Turn your head, you old goose; it isn't my fault either!" she vowed to the woods and the fallen leaves and the empty road. "That man at the stables hasn't been washing the wheels as he should; he's let them get too dry!"

But it was useless to patch up any such excuse as this even to herself; she knew quite well it was her own reckless driving that did it and she knew there was a scene with her father ahead; but she set her lips firmly and turned to the work in hand. She got the trap as best she could out of the road, she unharnessed Starlight and flung the black rug upon his back. "I suppose I will have to ride you home so-- My soul!" She jumped a foot. A little creature running swiftly down the fence rails, sprang to the ground just ahead of her and flashed into the woods.

It was a full second before she knew what it meant. Then she heard the baying of the dogs.

The fox, close cornered, had taken to the fence rails to throw the dogs off its scent and then, seeing her, he had leaped across the road. She sprang to the fence; far over in the field beyond the dogs were running aimlessly about. She climbed up, standing sharply silhouetted on the high fence of chestnut rails, and waved her hand frantically. Some one saw her, understood, came pounding that way, others at his heels, calling the dogs sharply.

Frances sprang on Starlight's back and went crashing through the woods. A dog sped by her, another. She heard a rider close behind, but she was still ahead; and then she and the dogs pulled up short before a narrow stream and a wall of tangled vine-clad rocks on the other side. They had run the fox to earth, but he was safe. Even then she was glad.

The dogs were baying like mad about her, Starlight was in a lather of foam and breathing heavily, the loosened tendrils of her hair whipped against her scarlet cheek, her eyes were gleams of fire.

"First, _first_!" she cried, as the rider she had heard broke through the woods.

It was Lawson.

IV

Lawson rode with Frances home. The whole field followed. Never had he seen a madder frolic. For many a beast and many a rider crowding the country road, the noon sun shining down on them hotly, he had learned a wholesome respect. Some stiff jumping and hot riding he had seen on those rough mountain fields, and he was inordinately proud of himself for so holding his own and proud of the spirit of the girl by whose side he rode.

They went straight to the stables. Mr. Carver stood speechless at the remnant of the turnout he had sent to the professor's home early in the morning.

"Mr. Carver," announced Frances coolly, as she slipped from Starlight's back, "the trap is up the road, just this side of the fork. I wish you would send for it."

"What's the matter?"

"One wheel missing, that's all," as if that were a slight affair. "And Mr. Carver," coaxingly, "just have it fixed as soon as you can, and don't say too much about it. It's not a bad break, just one wheel!"

"Bless my soul!" Mr. Carver, with an innate love of beauty, gazed admiringly at flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, "Of course, of course! Come into the office; let me brush your dress for you, it will never do to go home that way." The cloth skirt was covered with long black hairs from the rug.

"Starlight run away?" he asked, as they stood in the little office, while he was busily whisking her skirt.

"Oh, no!" Frances was looking through the open door at Lawson as he went down the stable aisle, his horse's bridle across his arm. He was walking with quick, confident step, shoulders well back, head carried high. She watched him out of sight.

"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Carver.

Frances told it as briefly as she could, winding up with her triumphant boast, "But I was first at the finish."

"Good Lord!" laughed her delighted listener. "What will your father say?"

Frances looked around at the open littered desk, the ink-crusted pen and splashed blotter and loose papers, at the thin oak partition of the walls covered with calendars and sporting prints. She was sobered. "I don't know," she said suddenly; "I am going to see. Good-by, thank you!"

She hurried out, she had just missed her car. She waited at the corner impatiently. It was long past the noon, the long string of carriages which had filled the street at an earlier hour was gone, the shops up and down looked deserted, some belated driver drove briskly past, an empty buggy or two waited here and there; the autumn sun blazed on houses and pavement.

"Were you going to leave me?" The tone was distinctly resentful.

"Why--" It nearly slipped her lips that, having started alone, she expected to return alone; and though she caught the words before their utterance, the look of her thought showed so plainly on her face that the young man read it easily enough.

"We are at least going the same way," he said stiffly.

"Yes," said Frances weakly, making for the car which was at last in sight.