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body was always covered with a thin cotton fly-blanket.

At last the eventful day arrived. Shortly after breakfast Houston and Don Juan walked to the track so they could look things over. Before crossing the starting-line, Don Juan stopped and critically surveyed the two sixfoot strips of cleared ground extending more than a half-mile out on the floorlike valley. Waist-high brush flanked all sides, while a hedgelike growth separated the tracks for their full length.

"It 's father's idea," Houston explained.

"This is where he tries out the polo ponies he ships back East. He says that brush in the middle keeps the hosses apart and gives each one an equal show."

Don Juan pulled at his goatee. "Good idea," he said, and they moved on.

The race was to be at three o'clock, but long before noon the valley was dotted with an eager crowd. The Mexicans were the first to arrive; coming on foot, astride patient little burros, horses, mules, and in creaking, heavy wagons, fashionable rigs, and automobiles. They selected a spot about half-way between the starting-line and finishing-post, but a few rods from the track, and settled down for a real holiday.

Exactly at three o'clock the expectant throng had their first look at Silver Plume, as the Mexican champion was paraded over the track. And a handsome picture he made, wide between the eyes, full at the nostrils, broadchested, high-hipped, a shining silver beauty. Perched upon his back, riding native fashion with a surcingle strapped over his knees, was Don Juan's noted jockey, Pancho Guzman.

Pancho was also a study. A wily, dried-up Chihuahua Indian, well past thirty, but weighing only ninety pounds. Stripped to the waist, a bright red handkerchief tied around his head, and his long, skinny arms grasping the bridle-reins, the little jockey greatly resembled a crouching brown monkey. Cheer after cheer arose from Americans and Mexicans alike as he guided Silver Plume onward.

Soon the onlookers were greeted by the sight of another thoroughbred, a trim-built sorrel. A true head, full brown eyes, tremendous depth of chest, slim-barreled, and a coat that shone like rusty gold. In points there was little difference, but Silver Plume was somewhat the heavier, perhaps by a hundred pounds, while Houston weighted forty pounds more than Pancho. The advantage was all with Silver Plume, but as Rusty gingerly trotted toward the starting-line, his reception was deafening.

Houston's only preparation for the race had been to clean up a light jockey saddle, have his hair cut, and put on a clean suit of khaki. He would ride without whip or spur, knowing that Rusty would do his best for the half-mile dash with but little urging.

Grouped on each side of the starting-line were more than a hundred mounted men, partly Mexicans, and all of whom were there to see fair play. The instant the racers should start, all hands would charge in behind them, yelling at the top of their voices, waving their

hats in the air, and rush onward to the finish. Never had any of them seen a fairer start. There had been no jockeying for position. Like one horse, Rusty and Silver Plume shot across the line, their pounding hoofs raising the dust-clouds that quickly rolled into one. Neck and neck they tore onward, Pancho crouching low over Silver Plume's withers, his beady eyes on the clear strip ahead. Houston likewise leaned far forward, until his head was over Rusty's neck. Neither rider had as yet called for greater speed. Each one was waiting for the final spurt that would spell victory.

Pancho, watchful, cool, a jockey for years, was overlooking nothing. Houston, just as cool, with the utmost confidence in his own gallant mount, was tense, expectant, waiting.

On they rushed, faster and faster. Sometimes a red nose would be ever so slightly in the lead, then a silver; but the relative position was not changed. Three hundred yards were covered in a whirlwind burst of speed. The first quarter-mile had just come to an end when something happened that almost made Houston's heart stand still. A black-haired Mexican child of two, who had been left asleep under one of the wagons, while the mother eagerly watched the race, toddled from the brush on Houston's side and wonderingly took in the onrushing horse.

Houston's first thought was to guide Rusty off the track, later swing back again, then do his best to win, anyway. He had barely pulled on the rein when something, until the moment entirely forgotten, came to him. Some place behind was that troop of wild-riding horsemen, who in all probability would never see the child, enveloped in the dust raised by Rusty's hoofs. There was but one thing to do -and Houston did it. Leaning far over, he grabbed an outstretched arm, hoisted the little one in front of him, and prepared for the best finish he could put up. But as the child's frightened squawk trailed off into a plaintive wail, he knew that the chances of winning were very meager. Rusty had not only been thrown off his stride, but had been further handicapped by a good twenty-five pounds; and Silver Plume was now two lengths ahead.

When the sorrel settled down to business again, Pancho was grinning back over his shoulder, sure that the race was practically won. Others thought the same, but it was still quite a distance to where John Page and Don Juan held a tightened cord across the track.

Suddenly Pancho realized that the race was not over, by any means, for the gap had in

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In vicious, long-arm swings Pancho brought his quirt whistling down; still he could not shake off that red streak, always creeping toward the lead. Never before had he been obliged to use the whip so freely.

Another hundred yards at the same whirlwind clip, and the lead had been cut down still more. The eyes of every spectator were set, breath was held back, while a thousand hands convulsively opened and closed. Houston hugged the child to his chest and whispered between set teeth, "Be quiet! Be quiet!" at the same time inwardly groaning on account of the little he could do.

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"THERE WAS BUT ONE THING TO DO-AND HOUSTON DID IT"

the red nose grew closer to a shining flank. But no one thought that the sorrel could win; the lead was too great. Rusty thought differently, however, and he was doing the running. Little by little, he closed the gap until his head was even with Silver Plume's hindquarters, while that taut piece of cord seemed tearing toward them.

Head to shoulder now, with Silver Plume running as he had never run before, and the finish a scant hundred feet distant. "Silver-red, silver-red," seemed to be the tune that was pounded out by the twinkling hoofs. Down swished the quirt, but before it was upraised again Rusty': head was half-way along the silver neck. Two more strides and it was even with the throat-latch. Another, and the horses were neck and neck. The next, and a red nose struck the taut cord ever so slightly in advance of a silver one. and as the immense crowd broke into wild cheers that echoed and reechoed far out on the valley, Rusty of hist

own accord slowed down-a winner!

The crowd was still cheering when, a few moment's later, an excited Mexican woman snatched up her child; but every one became silent as Don Juan elbowed his way to Houston's side, grasped an extended hand, and broke out, "I feel honored in knowing you, Señor; so fine a lad, and as true a sportsman !"

By BETH B. GILCHRIST

Author of "Cinderella's Granddaughter"

SYNOPSIS OF THE FIVE PREVIOUS INSTALMENTS

ELLIOTT CAMERON, petted American girl, came to her Uncle Bob's in Highboro while her father went overseas for a year on business for the Government. She had not wanted to come and she planned to go away again just as soon as the scarlet fever quarantine, which had banished her and her cousin Stannard to Highboro, should be lifted from her Uncle James's house. But in spite of herself she liked the people at Cameron Farm, and after a while she liked the farm. There must have been magic in it, for actually, when the six weeks are up, she did not want to go away at all! She couldn't face a bit happily any prospect of leaving Uncle Bob and Aunt Jessica and Laura and Harry and Gertrude and Tom and Priscilla -not excepting Bruce Fearing, who was n't a cousin at all, but who, with his brother Pete, now flying in France with Bob Cameron, had been adopted by the Robert Camerons when the Fearings were children. And, of course, there was no reason, aside from her own wish, why Elliott should go away.

It was on the very day she made this discovery that she cooked her first dinner, that word came that Sidney, Laura's twin brother, was ill at Camp Devens. "Mother Jess" went to him at once, and with her went Laura, because Elliott had said she was sure that, with all the help the Camerons and their neighbors, the Gordons, would give her, she could keep house in their absence. But, oh, how different it was from having Mother Jess there! And Sidney's illness increased daily, and word came to Bruce that Pete was "missing," and Elliott cabled her father and got no word in reply. Then the world grew very black indeed.

CHAPTER XI

"MISSING"

SURE enough, in the morning came better news, Father Bob's face, when he turned around from the telephone, told that, even before he opened his lips.

"Sidney is holding his own," he said.

You may think that was n't much better news, but it meant a great deal to the Camerons. "Sidney is holding his own," they told every one who inquired, and their faces were hopeful. If Father Bob had any fears, he kept them to himself. The rest of the Camerons were all young, and it did n't seem possible to them that Sidney could do anything but get well. Last night had been a bad dream, that was all.

The next morning's message had the word "better" in it. "Little" stood before "better," but nobody, not even Father Bob, paid much attention to "little." Sidney was better. It was a week before Mother Jess wrote that the doctors pronounced him out of danger and that she and Laura would soon be home. Meanwhile, many things had happened.

You might have thought that Sidney's illness was enough trouble to come to the. Camerons at one time, but as Bruce quoted, with a twist in his smile, "It never rains but it pours.' This time Bruce himself got the message which came from the War Department and read, "Regret to inform you that Lieutenant Peter Fearing has been reported missing since September fifteenth. Letter follows."

The Camerons felt as badly as though Peter Fearing had been their own brother. "The telegram does n't say that he 's dead," Trudy declared over and over again. "Maybe he's a prisoner," Tom suggested. "Perhaps he had to come down in a wood somewhere," Henry speculated, "and will get back to our lines."

"The Government makes mistakes sometimes," Stannard said. "There was a woman in Upton-" He went on with a long story about a woman whose son was reported killed in France on the very day the boy had been in his mother's house on furlough from a cantonment. "So you never can tell," he wound up.

"No, you never can tell," Bruce agreed; but he did n't look convinced.

"Don't anybody write Mother Jess," he said. "She and Laura have enough to worry about with Sid."

"What if they see it in the papers?" Elliott asked.

"They're busy. Ten to one they won't see it, since it is n't head-lined on the front page. Wait till we get the letter."

After all, the letter, when it came, did n't tell them much. The letter said that Lieutenant Peter Fearing had gone out with his squadron on a bombing expedition well within the enemy lines. The formation had successfully accomplished its raid and was returning when it was taken by surprise and surrounded by a greatly superior force of enemy 'planes, which gave the Americans a running fight of thirty-nine minutes to their lines. Lieutenant

Fearing's was one of two 'planes which failed to return to the aerodrome. When last seen, his machine was in combat with four Hun 'planes over enemy territory.

"What did I tell you?" interrupted Tom. "He's a prisoner."

An airplane had been reported as falling in flames near this spot; but whether it was Lieutenant Fearing's machine or another, nothing was yet at hand to prove. The writer begged to remain, etc., etc.

No, that letter only opened up fresh fields for Cameron imaginations to torment Cameron hearts. Nobody had happened to think before of Pete's machine catching fire.

"Gracious!" said Henry, "if that 'plane was his '

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"There's no certainty that it was," said Bruce, quickly.

"If that machine was Pete's," Father Bob mused, "Hun aviators may drop word of him within our lines. They have done that kind of thing before."

"Would n't Bob cable if he knew anything more than this letter says?" Gertrude questioned.

"I expect Bob's waiting to find out something certain before he cables," said Father Bob. "Doubtless he has written. We shall just have to wait for his letter."

"Wait-gee!" whispered Henry.

"Both the boys' letters were so awfully late in the summer!" sighed Gertrude. "How can we ever wait for a letter from Bob?"

Elliott said nothing at all. Her heart was aching with sympathy for Bruce. When a person could do something, she thought, it helped tremendously. Mother Jess and Laura had gone to Sidney, and she had had a chance to make Laura's going possible; but there did n't seem to be anything she could do for Bruce. And she wanted to do something for Bruce; she found that she wanted to dreadfully. Thinking about Mother Jess and Laura reminded her to look up and ask, "What are we going to write them at Camp Devens?"

Then she discovered that she and Bruce were alone in the room. He was sitting at Mother Jess's desk in as deep a brown study as she had been. The girl's voice roused him. "The kind of thing we 've been writing— home news. Time enough to tell them about Pete when they get here. By that time, perhaps, there will be something definite to tell.' He hesitated a minute. "Laura is going to feel pretty well cut up over this."

Elliott looked up quickly. "Especially cut up, do you mean?"

"I think so. Oh, there was n't anything definite between her and Pete-nothing, at least, that they told the rest of us! But a fellow who had eyes-" He left the sentence unfinished and walked over to Elliott's chair. "You know I told you," he said, "that I should n't go into this war unless I was called. Of course I'm registered now, but whether or not they call me, if Pete is out of it, and I can possibly manage it, I 'm going in."

A queer little pain contracted Elliott's heart. And then that odd heart of hers began to swell and swell until she thought it would burst. She looked at the boy with proud eyes. It did n't occur to her to wonder what she was proud of. Bruce Fearing was no kin of hers, you know. "I knew you would." Somehow it seemed to the girl that she could always tell what Bruce Fearing was going to do and that there was nothing strange in such knowledge. How strong he was, how splendid and understanding and fine! "Oh," she cried, "I wish, how I wish I could help you!". "You do help me," he said.

"I?" Her eyes were lifted in real surprise. "How can I?"

"By being you."

His hand had only to move an inch to touch hers, but it lay motionless. His eyes, gray and steady and clear, held the girl's. She gave him back look for look.

"I am glad," she said softly, and her face was like a flower.

Bruce was out of the house before Elliott thought of the thing she could do for him.

"Mercy me!" she cried. "You 're the slowest person I ever saw in my life, Elliott Cameron!" She ran to the kitchen door, but the boy was nowhere in sight. "He must be out at the barn," she said, and took a step in that direction, only to take it back again. "No I won't. I'll just go by myself and do it."

Whatever it was, it put her in a great hurry. As fast as she had dashed to the kitchen, she now ran to the front hall, but the third step of the stairs halted her.

"Elliott Cameron," she declared earnestly, "I do believe you have lost your mind! Have n't you any sense at all? And you a responsible housekeeper!"

Perhaps it was n't the first time a whirlwind ever struck the Cameron farm-house. Elliott had n't a notion that she could work so fast. Her feet fairly flew. Bed-covers whisked into place; dusting-cloths raced over furniture; even milk-pans moved with unwonted celerity. But she left them clean— clean and shining.

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