While he was wondering, the small figure on the horse sent up a cry that rang like the note of a bell and echoed in sweet shrillness down the hill and along the valley.

The collie stopped as if shot, and the fox-terrier looked round, prepared to go back to the rider.

It looked for a moment as if the rider were going down the other side of the hill again; then suddenly, as if he detected something wrong in the valley below, he turned the horse and came down the hill-side at a pace which made Stafford, hard and fearless rider as he was, open his eyes.
It seemed to him impossible that the horse could avoid a false step or a slip, and such a false step he knew would send steed and rider hurtling down to something that could be very little short of instant death.

He forgot all about the big trout in the pool, and stood with his fly drifting aimlessly in the water, watching with something like breathless interest this, the most daring piece of horsemanship he had ever witnessed; and he had ridden side by side with the best steeplechaser of the day, and had watched a crack Hungarian cavalry corps at its manoeuvres; which last is about the top notch of the horse-riding business.
But the big horse did not falter for a moment; down it came at a hard gallop, and Stafford's admiration was swallowed up in amazement when he saw that the rider was a young girl, that she was riding with about half an ounce on the reins, and that, apparently, she was as much at ease and unconscious of danger as if she were trotting on a tame hack in Rotten Row.
As she came nearer, admiration romped in ahead of amazement, for the girl was a young one--she looked like the average school-girl--and had one of the most beautiful faces Stafford had ever seen.

She was dark, but the cheek that was swept by the long lashes was colourless with that exquisite and healthy pallor which one sees in the women of Northern Spain.