Half an hour later they drove into Elsmore with the radiance of their betrothal still about them, and Idy drove the team up, with a skillful avoidance of the curb, before the "Live and Let Live Meat-Market." "I'm goin' to get some round steak," she said, giving the lines to Parker, who sprang to the sidewalk, "an' then I'm goin' over to Saunders's to look at jerseys. You c'n go where you please, but if I see you loafin' 'round a saloon there'll be a picnic. If you tie the team, you want to put a halter on the pinto--he's like me, he hates to be tied; he pulls back. If you hain't got much to do, I think you'd better make a hitchin'-post of yerself, and not tie 'im." She stood up in the wagon, preening her finery, and looking down at her lover before she gave him her hand. "I won't be a hitchin'-post if you hate to be tied," he said, holding out his hands invitingly. As he spoke, the rider of a glittering bicycle glided noiselessly around the corner, apparently steering straight for Eben's team of ranch-bred broncos. The pinto snorted wildly, and dashed into the street, jerking the reins from Parker's hand, and rolling him over in the dust. There was the customary soothing yell with which civilization always greets a runaway, and a man sprang from a doorway on the opposite side of the street, and flung himself in front of the frightened horses. The pinto reared, but the stranger's hand was on the bridle; a firm and skillful hand it seemed, for the horses came down on quivering haunches, and then stood still, striving to look around their blinders in search of the modern centaur that had terrified them. Idy had fallen back into the seat without a word or cry, and sat there bolt upright, her face so white that it gleamed through the meshes of her veil. "Well," she said, with a long panting breath, "that was a pretty close call fer kingdom come, wasn't it?" The stranger, who was stroking the pinto's nose, and talking to him coaxingly, laughed. "Hello, Park!" he said as the latter came up. "Cold day, wasn't it? Got your jacket pretty well dusted for once, I guess." The crowd that had collected laughed, and two or three bareheaded men began to examine the harness. While this was in progress, the livery-stable keeper took a look at the pinto's teeth, and they all confided liberally in one another as to what they had thought when they first heard the racket. The young man who had stopped the team left them in the care of a newcomer, and walked around beside Idy. "Won't you come into the office and rest a little?" he asked. "Oh, thanks, no," said the girl, with a shuddering, nervous laugh; "I hain't done nothin' to make _me_ tired. I think you're the one that ought to take a rest. If it hadn't been fer you I'd been a goner, sure."