stranger apparently failed to hear.

"What is the cap?" he asked, courteously. "A fiver this season, I believe."

"Danny!" The secretary was visibly agitated. "You're Danny Drayton! And we thought you were dead!"

"I fear, sir, that there is some mistake," returned the other. "My name is John Marston."

In silence the two men looked at one another and then Major Dawlish bowed.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Marston," he said, gravely. "But you bear a strange resemblance to a certain very dear friend of mine, whom we all believed had been killed at Flers in 1916. He combined two outstanding qualities," continued the secretary, deliberately, "did that friend of mine: quixotic chivalry to the point of idiocy, and the most wonderful horsemanship."

Once more the eyes of the two men met, and then John Marston looked away, staring over the wonderful bit of country lying below them.

"I am sorry," he remarked, quietly, "that you should have lost your friend."

"Ah, but have I, Mr. Marston; have I?" interrupted David Dawlish, quickly.

"You tell me he died at Flers," returned the other. "And very few mistakes were made in such matters, which have not been rectified since."

"He disappeared a year or two before the war," said the secretary, "suddenly—without leaving a trace. We heard he had gone to New Zealand; but we could get no confirmation. Do you ever go to the Grand National, Mr. Marston?" he continued, with apparent irrelevance.

The stranger stiffened in his saddle. "I have been," he answered, abruptly. Merciful heavens! wouldn't some hound own to scent soon?

"Do you remember that year when a certain gentleman rider was booed on the course?" went on the secretary, reminiscently. "It was the year John Drayton and Son went smash for half a million: and it was the son who was booed."

"I don't wonder," returned the stranger. "He was a fool to ride."

"Was he, Mr. Marston? Was he? Or was it just part of that quixotic chivalry of which I have spoken? The horse was a rogue: there was no one else who could do him justice: so, rather than disappoint his friend, the owner, the son turned out."

"And very rightly got hissed for his pains," said John Marston, grimly. "I remember the smash well—Drayton's smash. It ruined thousands of poor people: and only a legal quibble saved a criminal prosecution."

"True," assented the secretary. "But it was old Drayton's fault. We all knew it at the time. Danny Drayton—the son——"

"The man who died at Flers," interrupted John Marston, and the secretary looked at him quietly.

"Perhaps: perhaps not. Mistakes have occurred, But whether he died or whether he didn't—the son was incapable of even a mean thought. He was not to blame."

"I must beg to differ, sir," returned John Marston. "The firm was Drayton and Son: the Son was responsible as much as the father. If one member of a firm goes wrong, the other members must make good. It is only fair to the public."

"I see," answered the secretary. "Then I wonder who the other member of the firm can have been? The father died soon after the exposure: the son died at Flers." He looked John Marston straight in the face.

"That would seem to account for the firm, returned the other, indifferently.

"Except for one thing," said the secretary, "the significance of which—strangely enough—has only just struck me. There's a certain old farmer in this district, who invested one hundred pounds with Drayton—all his savings. Along with the rest, it went smash. A month or two ago he received one hundred and thirty-five pounds in notes, from an unknown source. Seven years' interest at five per cent. is thirty-five pounds." And suddenly the secretary, usually one of the most unemotional of men, leaned forward in his saddle, and his voice was a little husky. "Danny! You damned quixotic fool! Come back to us: we can't afford to lose a man who can go like you."

The man in ratcatcher stared fixedly in front of him—his profile set and rigid. For a moment the temptation was well-nigh overwhelming: every account squared up—every loss made good. Then, ringing in his ears, he heard once more the yells and cat-calls as he had cantered past the stand at Aintree.

"As I said to you before, sir," he said, facing the secretary steadily: "my name is John Marston. You are making a mistake."

What Major Dawlish's reply would have been will never be known. He seemed on the point of an explosion of wrath, when clear and shrill through the morning air came Joe Mathers' "Gone away." The pack came tumbling out of covert, and everything else was forgotten.

"It's the right line," cried John Marston, excitedly. "Hangman's Bottom, for a quid."

The field streamed off, everyone according to their own peculiar methods bent on getting the best they could out of a breast-high scent. The macadam brigade left early, and set grimly about their dangerous task. The man whose horse always picked up a stone early if the run was likely to be a hot one, and arrived cursing his luck, late but quite safe, duly dismounted and fumbled with his outraged steed's perfectly sound hoof. The main body of the field streamed along in a crowd—that big section which is the backbone of every hunt, which contains every variety of individual, and in which every idiosyncrasy of character may be observed by the man who has eyes to see. And then in front of all, riding their own line—but not, as the uninitiated might imagine, deliberately selecting the most impossible parts of every jump, merely for the sport of the thing—the select few.

They had gone two miles without the suspicion of a check, before the secretary found himself near Sir Hubert. Both in their day had belonged to that select few, but now they were content to take things a little easier.

"It's Danny, Hubert," said the secretary, as they galloped side by side over a pasture field towards a stiff-looking post and rails. "Calling himself John Marston."

The Master grunted—glancing for a moment under his bushy eyebrows at the man, two or three hundred yards in front, who, despite his mount, still lived with the vanguard.

"Of course it is," he snorted. "There's no one else would be where he is, on a horse like that, with hounds running at this rate."

They steadied their pace as they came to the timber, and neither spoke again till they were halfway across the next field.

"What's his game, David? Confound you, sir," his voice rose to a bellow, as he turned in his saddle and glared at an impetuous youth behind, "will you kindly not ride in my pocket? Infernal young puppy! What's his game, David?"

"Quixotic tommy-rot," snorted the other. "He knows I know he's Danny: but he won't admit it."

"Has Molly seen him yet?" Sir Hubert glanced away to the left, where his daughter, on a raking black, had apparently got her hands full.

"I don't know."