Hoof Beats 



"What'll you take for the Marquis?" he cried, 

 but Fullerton only beat the air with his arms and 

 made uninteUigible sounds. It was all clear open 

 country now before them, broad and rolling, with 

 only a patch of woods here and there. The pack 

 made the most of it and with a final spurt for the 

 next half mile near Blindman's Lane, a little above 

 where they had crossed it before, they chopped 

 their quarry in the open, when only the Marquis 

 was there. 



Afterward both Fullerton and Williams rode 

 home past the Spring Run pasture, and found the 

 old Marquis there chewing a mouthful of cool mud. 

 Both men got off and tied their horses outside and 

 went in through the pasture gate, and Fullerton 

 called to the Marquis to come. Then the Mar- 

 quis made a circle of the pasture, proudly, disdain- 

 fully, but in the end he came quietly up and put 

 his nose into Fullerton's outstretched hand. 



*T'll give you a thousand dollars .'or him," 

 said Williams. 'T don't care if he's forty years old. 

 He can jump the side of a house!" But Fullerton 

 only laughed. 



"Two thousand," said Williams quickly without 

 a moment's hesitation, and glanced at the spot on 

 the Marquis's foreleg, where the firing had burned 

 the^hair off and left it bare. But to Fullerton's 

 everlasting credit, let it be said, for he had been 



