“Don’t let them run!” cried Jane Ann Hicks, standing up in the carriage behind.
But in that single moment of recklessness the ponies became unmanageable—at least, unmanageable for The Fox. She pulled the left rein to bring them back into the trail, and off the creatures dashed, at headlong speed, along the narrow way. On the right was the unscalable wall of rock; on the left was the awful drop to the roaring river!
CHAPTER X—RUTH SHOWS HER METTLE
Shouting after the runaway, and shrieking advice to The Fox, who still clung to the reins, was of no particular use, and Tom Cameron realized that as well as did Jane Ann. The boy from the East picked himself up and leaped upon the rear of the second buckboard as it passed him, and they tore on after the frightened ponies.
Mary Cox could not hold them. She was not a good horsewoman, in any case; and a moment after the ponies broke loose, she was just as frightened as ever she could be.
She did not drop the lines; that was because she did not think to do so. She was frozen with terror. The ponies plunged along the narrow trail, weaving the buckboard from side to side, and Mary was helpless to stop them. On the rear seat Helen and Ruth clung together in the first shock of fear; the threatening catastrophe, too, appalled them.
But only for the first few seconds was Ruth inactive. Behind the jouncing vehicle Tom was shouting to them to “pull ’em down!” Ruth wrenched herself free from her chum’s grasp and leaned forward over the seat-back.
“Give the reins to me!” she cried in Mary’s ear, and seized the leathers just as they slipped from the hands of The Fox.
Ruth gripped them firmly and flung herself back into her own seat. Helen seized her with one hand and saved her from being thrown out of the pitching vehicle. And so, with her chum holding her into her seat, Ruth swung all her weight and force against the ponies’ bits.
At first this seemed to have not the least effect upon the frightened animals. Ruth’s slight weight exercised small pressure on those iron jaws. On and on they dashed, rocking the buckboard over the rough trail—and drawing each moment nearer to that perilous elbow in the cañon!