In the C.O.'s box the chaplain was on his feet, his hands clasped in silent supplication; Mrs.Fortescue, braver than a brave soldier, put her arm about her husband's neck, as Colonel Fortescue swayed about in his seat like a drunken man.

Amid the blare of the band and the riders and chargers almost upon the struggling horse and motionless girl, lying on the tanbark, Broussard, coolly, as if he were on the parade ground, lifted Gamechick by the bridle, gave him a touch of the spur, and the next moment cleared both mare and girl, with twenty inches between Gamechick's iron-shod hind hoofs and Anita's beautiful blonde head.
[Illustration: Broussard, lifted Gamechick by the bridle and the next moment cleared both mare and girl.] It had all passed in twenty seconds by the clock, but to those who watched it seemed a long hour of agony.

The moment the leap was made, Anita sprang to her feet and Broussard was on the tanbark.

Wild cheering almost drowned the crash of the band; some of the women were weeping and others laughing hysterically, the men cheering like madmen.
Broussard smilingly picked up Anita's cavalry cap, which had fallen on the tanbark, brushed it and put it on Anita's pretty head; some words, unheard by others, passed between them.

The mare then lay perfectly quiet.