Stay, there was one thing--the rope! A chance, but a slender one. Quick as a flash he put a couple of turns round the post he had been aiming at and gathered the noose for a cast. The bull came thundering along the road, head down, tail out, snorting with rage and defiance. If it kept on like that it would pass quite close to him. He put another turn round the post. The shorter the rope the better the chance; and then, hand and eye acting in unison, he sent the noose round his head and made his cast. If he succeeded the bull would be over, if he failed the girl must go down. And succeed he did. It was to him quite an easy throw. The noose settled fairly over those curving horns. There was a jerk, a roar of rage and fear, and the great struggling creature was hurled forward so violently, through the force of its flight, that it fell in a cloud of scattered mud and stones, and lay half stunned and wholly bewildered. Ralph, with a cry of thankfulness, ran forward, and pulled the girl from her dangerous proximity to its mighty legs, just as a gentleman, pale with terror, rushed from a shop near by, where he had been giving some orders. "Irene!" he cried. "My little Irene! Thank Heaven that you are safe!" Then, as he saw the bull still noosed, and now in the hands of several men, he went on-- "But who did that? Who stopped the bull in that way?" and a dozen hands pointed to Ralph, who stood there feeling rather confused and awkward, and wishing that he could run away. Young ladies were more terrible things in his eyes than were angry bulls; and this young lady was thanking him so prettily, while her father, for so the gentleman was, kept shaking his hand, hardly able to voice his gratitude. He seemed overcome with a sense of the good hand of Providence in the matter. "You are staying at the inn," he said. "I must return and express my thanks to your father. I will take my little daughter home first and then come back. Perhaps he will be in by then. What is your name, my dear young gentleman?" "Ralph Rexworth," the lad answered. And the gentleman answered-- "And mine is Hubert St. Clive, and if ever I can be of service to you I shall think nothing too much to enable me to show some return for what you have done for me and mine this evening." It was really a relief to Ralph when Mr. St. Clive had gone, and he was glad to get back to his room and escape the curious and admiring crowd, though even then he could not shut the landlord out, nor prevent the admiration of the maid, who would come in on all sorts of pretexts just to have a peep at him; and so the evening wore on, and the time for his father's return drew near.