Ruth spied pursuit where the turnpike elbowed sharply from the outskirts. For a demure girl her smile was mischievous. Walking her wiry little pony till the footfalls of Shelby's chestnut cob beat the 'pike a scant hundred yards behind, she flicked her animal ever so lightly with her riding crop. The man saw a puff of dust, a twinkle of little hoofs, and a lithe figure outlined for an instant against the autumn sky as it sped over a hill and far away. The cob labored to the crest and pondered his defeat. A half-mile down the unkempt old toll road, where the goldenrod dropped stately bows to the purple aster, and Bouncing Bet viewed their livelong philandering with scorn, was the impertinent runt--walking! Down thundered the cob. No evasion now. Two hundred yards, one fifty, one hundred yards, seventy-five, sixty, even fifty--and again the pursued was spirited away in a cloud. Shelby bore it thrice, and raised his voice. Ruth's surprise was a delightful thing to see. "I've tried these three miles to overtake you," he scolded. "You must have heard me." Ruth surveyed the smoking cob. "We did hear a noise. My pony is so restive." "The little beast looks as demure as yourself. I believe you knew it was I." Ruth's glance swept a neighboring field. "Have you ever associated cabbages with beauty?" she asked. "Just look at that reach of blue-green." Shelby admired obediently. Then, the occasion seeming to demand a certain finesse, he said:-- "There's a man out this way I must look up--a kind of farmer, drover, and jockey rolled in one. He influences a bunch of votes. It's very pleasant to find you riding the same way. I'm glad we met--that is--if you--" Her smile stopped his limping improvisation in mid-career. "You needn't invent anything more," she said. "You're not good at it." "There really is such a man," he defended, with a contented laugh; "but he can wait. I'd like to be quit of the political grind for a while. May I rest?" "Yes; you may come," Ruth decided. His appeal struck a womanly chord. October was spendthrift of its pigments. Every isolated copse was a mimic forest fire, each bivouacked corn-field a russet foil, the air a heady wine. Shelby thrilled with dumb pastorals and a vague longing to do and speak in keeping with the spirit of the scene. A tuft of oxeye daisies in the shelter of a ruinous worm fence attracted him, and he reined the cob from the highway to fetch them. To his bewilderment Ruth's face shadowed at the gift. "Poor things--what made you?" she lamented. "I've watched them there for a fortnight. What clumsy florist could have grouped them with the tall grasses so exquisitely, and set the little red vine clambering over all in the fence corner, so satiny and lichen-gray?" Shelby was mystified. "I thought that they would look smart in your belt--that all women wanted to pick flowers when they saw them--" he stammered. "I'm afraid I know little of women's ways."