The horseman pounded down the road behind him, the hounds were baying in the distance, and almost before Kathleen knew what was happening, the deer had run into the wide-open barn door and she had closed it behind him and was listening in terror to the sound of his plunging hoofs. Then the excitement really began, for the strange hunter, who was no one but Tim Keefe himself, rode into the yard on his old farm-horse, and Patrick, Bee and Mary Ellen ran out of the house to see what was the matter. Patrick heard the noise in the barn and ran to see if his cows had gone crazy; Kathleen ran to hold the door and tell him about the deer, and Tim Keefe began to shout at the top of his voice that it was his deer because he had seen it first. He had been riding to the Kingsland bog to hire a bank of turf, he said, and the deer had crossed his path. He remembered that a pound reward is always given to the one who holds the deer for the hunters, and he had ridden after it, hoping by some means to gain the reward. Patrick smiled his broad smile. "It will be Kathleen who will get the pound, after all," he said. "But it was myself that whipped him down the road," said Tim hotly. Patrick's smile broke into a laugh. "'Twas Kathleen that shut him into the barn," he said, "and 'tis a fine whipper-in you make, Tim Keefe." Tim's coat was ragged and his trousers had seen the rains of many an Irish summer, an old pipe smoked in his mouth, and he was such a sorry-looking figure altogether that even Bee laughed at the sight of him. And while they all laughed, there came the "tally-ho!" of the hunters just beyond the old fort; the dogs swept into sight, and the real whipper-in rode up to the very door of the barn. In a moment the yard turned red to Kathleen's eyes, for a dozen mounted horsemen in scarlet coats and buff riding-breeches galloped close behind him, with ladies in gray and ladies in black, all riding splendid horses. Patrick sent the children out of the way of the horses' feet, while he explained how it happened that his barn was stabling a deer. Then the whipper-in quieted his hounds, and the ladies and gentlemen looked at bashful Kathleen, who had quite lost her voice in the midst of so much excitement. But when she was offered the pound that Tim Keefe had expected to receive, she shook her head. "Tell them I want the deer to go free," she whispered to Patrick. How everyone laughed at the idea! But in the end they agreed to it, telling her that she might open the barn door whenever she pleased. Then they all went away down the boreen, "as goodly a cavalcade as ever rode on Irish soil," Bee said.