With a single leap he reached the horse’s head, gripping the bit with muscular fingers and dragging the animal forward a step or two. “Get down here and hold the beast, uncle!” he ordered. “You’re a nice one to take people out behind a dangerous animal like this. Hustle, now!” The colored man hurriedly descended, muttering something about “interferin’ w’ite trash,” and sulkily obeyed. Elgin sprang to the door, hat in hand, and held it open. “It’s all right now, sir,” he said deferentially. “Just take my arm, if you please, and let me help you out.” An elderly man, white-haired, frail-looking, and dressed in a clergyman’s suit of black, obeyed tremblingly. He was followed much more swiftly by a young girl, a glimpse of whose lovely face had been the cause of that sudden transformation in Bert Elgin. She barely touched the pitcher’s arm as she leaped from the cab, the color bright in her cheeks, a glint of anger in her wonderful eyes. “It’s outrageous bringing us up with a horse like that!” she exclaimed indignantly. “You know I asked particularly if he was gentle, and you said he was.” “’Deed he am, leddy,” the negro affirmed hastily. “Dis hyer am jes’ his playful way. If dat gemman hadn’t come――” “If he hadn’t so kindly come to our help,” the girl put in emphatically, “we should have been upset.” As she stepped forward to pay the cabman she cast a glance of gratitude at Elgin, which started the blood tingling through his veins. “What a peach!” he thought fervently. Nothing of this appeared on the surface, however. Instinctively he schooled himself to retain the same respectful, deferential attitude he had assumed from the first. Still bareheaded, he seemed to be devoting all of his attention to the father, who was palpably nervous and upset by the incident. It was not until she turned from the negro and came back to them that his eyes met hers. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done,” she said quickly. “My father is not very strong, and if the cab had upset it would have been simply dreadful.” “It was really nothing,” Elgin protested. “I saw the horse was a bad-tempered brute, and got to his head in time. I’m glad I happened to be passing.” “You cannot be more thankful than my daughter and myself,” the older man put in rather weakly. “Your quick wit undoubtedly saved us from a serious accident. Just now I am too tired after a long journey to express my gratitude properly, but I hope you will give me the opportunity at some future time. I am the Reverend John Harting, and I shall be staying here a week or more with my friend, Henry Forsythe.” He held out a slim, white hand, which the ball player clasped firmly yet not too strenuously. “My name is Bert Elgin,” the younger man returned in respectful tones. “I’ll be very glad indeed to come and see you some evening before you leave town.” “Yes, yes,” the clergyman agreed, with impatience. “Janet, my dear, I think we had better go in. I am feeling――a little faint.”