One Sunday about the first of August, we was all sittin' in the shade of the shack, lookin' down into the valley. The shack backed up against a massive crag on the edge of a high plateau. The road from headquarters came in from the North, wound around a steep butte, then along the top o' the cliff to where it slid down into the valley to Danders. We heard the thud o' hoofs an' turnin' around, we saw the Colonel's niece tearin' down the road on a big hoss. It was a plain case of runaway, an' I felt something break inside my chest. They were headin' straight for the top o' the cliff, the hoss was goin' too fast to make the turn, an' we was too far off to beat him to it. We simply stood there like a flock o' sheep, without a single thought among us. The' didn't seem to be a thing to do, but just watch 'em plunge two hundred feet into the ravine. I glanced at Bill, but I hardly knew him. His brows was drawn down like a wildcat's, his jaws was clamped so tight you could hear 'em grit, an' his eyes seemed to smoke. I looked back to the road again, an' there was the pup, standin' down by the road watchin' the hoss runnin' toward him. I touched Bill on the shoulder, an sez, "Can the pup do anything, Bill?" Bill gave a sigh as though he had just come back from the dead, an' in a voice that wavered an' trembled, but still rang out like a trumpet, he yelled: "Throw him, Cupid, throw him!" Lord, man! I wish you could have seen it. The mane bristled up on that dog's back an' his muscles bulged out till he looked like a stone image. We heard him give a low whine, like as if he knowed it was too big a job for a little feller like him. But did he try to flunk it? Not him. Then I knew 'at he wasn't neither a bulldog nor a bull-terrier, but a little sixty-pound hero, willin' to pass out his life any time 'at Bill would draw a check for it. We fair helt our breath as he backed away from the road an' took a little easy gallop until the hoss was near even with him. Another dog would have blown his lungs loose, tellin' what he was a-goin' to do; but Cupid never said a word. His lip curled up till you could catch the glisten of those wicked white teeth of his, an' then when the hoss was right alongside an' it looked as if he had lost his chance, he gave a couple of short jumps an' threw himself for the critter's nose. Well, I can't rightly tell you just what did happen then. I saw him make his spring an' swing around full sweep, hangin' on to the hoss's nose; but from that on the whole earth seemed to be shook loose. The boss keeled over like he was shot, the girl seemed to turn a somerset in the air, an' light all in a heap, with one arm hangin' over the edge of the cliff. We heard a shriek, a little smothered yelp, an' then we ran down to them.