“Stop at the first house on the road,” directed Mr. Freeman; “tell them who you are, and what has befallen us, and ask them to come to my assistance, and for permission to stay at the house until I come for you.”
“Yes, father,” replied Rose, and then she and Anne started down the road. They kept in the shade for some distance, then the road ran up a long sandy hill where the sun came down fully upon them, and before they reached the summit they were very warm and tired.
“There’s a house!” exclaimed Anne, as they stopped to rest on the top of the hill.
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Rose. “And it’s a farmhouse. See the big barns. There are sure to be horses there.”
The girls quite forgot the heat, and ran down the sandy hill and hurried along the road, which now was a smoother and better one than any over which they had traveled, and in a short time were near the comfortable farmhouse. A woman was standing in the doorway watching them.
“Where in the world did you girls come from,” she called out as they opened the gate, “in all this heat? Come right in. I should think your folks must be crazy to let you walk in the sun. Was that your father who went galloping by on a brown horse just now?”
As soon as the woman finished speaking Rose told her their story.
“Then that man had stolen your horse! A Tory, I’ll wager; and like enough a spy,” said the woman; “and my menfolks all away. There are two horses in the pasture; if you girls can catch one of ’em and ride it back to where your father’s waiting, why, you’re welcome.”
Anne and Rose looked at each other almost in dismay. Neither of them had ever been on the back of a horse, and to go into a pasture and catch a strange horse seemed to them very much like facing a wild beast.
“We’ll try,” said Rose with a little smile.