obsession did lead me into real danger at least one other time. It was nearing the end of my year. Mrs. West had brought Bally and the buggy to the schoolhouse for me that afternoon; and with their help, I was to return our borrowed books to the school across the river. Then, in spite of a blackening sky and a gusty wind, I was going to risk continuing to the Post for the mail!

To do myself justice, Mrs. West actually advised my going this time. "Why, certainly I'd go on for it, if I really wanted it," said she. "It's too late in the season for storms on the Verde. If it should rain, it would n't amount to much."

That was enough for me, of course! I took the books home and then went on, down a not very familiar road, toward Camp Verde and the post-office.

The country here was rather more desert-like than on our side of the river. It was flatter, more monotonous; and I was traveling through an uncultivated section, too. There was a fence on one side for a way, but it seemed to be only a pasture fence. Inside and outside, the almost level land was dotted with a scattering growth of thin mesquite. It was all dreary enough under the darkening sky.

It was indeed a darkening sky. The clouds that rolled about old Squaw Peak were taking on a hue more and more inky every minute. And the wind was blowing ever more gustily.

I was watching the sky with an increasing nervousness now. Mrs. West had assured me that it could n't rain in the Valley at this time of year. If I had been anywhere else, I should certainly have expected rain or something. As it was, I began to expect something.

Now a few icy blasts came cutting down from the mountain, and with them a great stinging drop or two of rain. I decided to trust no longer to Mrs. West, but to act for myself; and I dived under the seat for the old umbrella she kept there and hoisted it in the teeth of the wind. Since I was still driving Bally, who evidently did not like the wind or the occasional lashing raindrops, this was no small task.

I had hardly got the umbrella up and its handle tucked firmly under my arm, when I began to perceive that it was going to be entirely insufficient. The cutting gusts were increasing to a gale; the occasional drops to a clatter of pelting rain, spiced now and then with a touch of hail. I struggled down with the umbrella, and hauled out an old slicker which providentially reposed under the seat. A large square had been torn from one corner of its tail, but its shoulders were intact. The wind got inside of it, puffed it out like a sail, and tried to carry it bodily out of my hands.

I was decidedly nervous now. How to get into the slicker and under the umbrella-how to keep Bally from running away?

I managed it somehow. I was inside the slicker. I had the handle of the open umbrella tightly clasped under my arm again. The umbrella itself rested low, almost on my hat. I was again sitting on the seat of the buggy with the reins in my resolute hands. Harder and harder blew the wind. Faster and faster fell the rain. More and more hail come hurtling down with it larger and larger stones. They battered on to my umbrella; they whacked poor Bally's sides like a cannonade of great marbles. For a little I was half-blind with the

storm and with sheer fright. Then, in my desperate need to act, the terror cleared away a little.

The buggy was filling with ice and ice-water. Bally was shivering, balking, leaping ahead in sudden spurts when the larger stones pelted her. At last she got her back to the tempest as nearly as she could, and, forsaking the road, set off galloping unsteadily through the mesquite. I would jerk at her almost stop her. An extra pelting of hail would set her off again. I saw the end of it in a swift vision - the wheels of our chariot tangled in some clump of mesquite the buggy upset

-I, lying stiff, crumpled, in the ice-water, with the hailstones pounding me. Somehow I had got to stop Bally!

For a second I did get her stopped, huddled together in the raging storm. And then I hurled myself out over the wheel on to the plain — a shallow lake, now, with hailstones floating in it. I was instantly wet to the knees gasping with cold; but I could not stop. I sprang to Bally's bridle and caught it and held on. Somehow I kept the umbrella, too.

I had a wild notion of leading my horse to the shelter of some clump of mesquite; but she had wild notions of her own. We dragged each other back and forth for a time. Once in a while I got her near a bush, only to find that it was worthless. Now and then she grew crazy with the beating of the stones and set off, pulling me after her. At last At last it seemed long, but I suppose it was only a short while we both realized the hopelessness of trying to better ourselves, and then we huddled close together and took what was coming. That lasted only a few minutes, too, I am sure.

The gale swept the black clouds and the lashing storm over us. The flood of driving rain became a drizzle and then a sprinkle. The pelting stones grew fewer and fewer, and ceased.

I stood there hanging to Bally's bridle and to the umbrella, and wondered how I had escaped alive. Any one of those stones might have stunned me if it had struck me squarely. The shallow lake of the plain was afloat with them everywhere. I climbed into the buggy its body several inches deep in ice-water — and headed Bally in what I thought was the direction of the road. I happened to be right. We reached the road. We were near Camp Verde, I saw.

Now I was very wet. My shoulders, protected by the yellow slicker, were dry; but my shoes were soaked, my skirts, to far above my knees, were wringing wet. In spite of the umbrella, my hat was wet. It hung in a dripping straw ruffle about my face, and from its two bunches of lovely pink roses fell rosy drops of ice-water. Damp strings of hair lay against my cold cheeks. I probably looked even worse than I felt, but my spirit was up. I was not going to be downed by such trifles as my appearance and the atmospheric conditions. I had set out to Camp Verde for the mail, and to Camp Verde for the mail I went.

They made rather a fuss over me in the post-office. I might have been killed, they said. It was a marvel I had n't been killed! And my nerve-!

"Nerve!" I cried half impatiently. "It was n't nerve! I was in it and I could n't get out! I had to stand it somehow!”

To this day I am very glad I did n't "collapse after it