Now and then she would quicken her pace and run until she was out of breath. She began to understand why Fluff was tired out. Just before she reached the river road there was the sound of breaking twigs, and of some animal making its way through the woods, and the next moment a deer followed by a young fawn sprang into the road directly in front of the surprised and startled little girl; but they vanished before Ruth realized that they had been within reach of her hand.
"Oh! I wish Winifred could have seen them," she thought. The road now hardly showed in the thick dusk. Ruth stumbled often, and began to be both hungry and thirsty. She wished she could stop and rest; but the thought of Winifred sitting alone under the big oak tree made her resolve not to stop until she reached home.
At last she could see an open space ahead, and the dark line of the river; and at the same moment she heard the sound of trotting feet on the road behind her and a little gray figure ran swiftly by.
"That was Fluff! I know it was Fluff," she exclaimed, and called loudly after the pony. But Fluff did not stop; he knew he was headed for home, and it was much easier to run along free and unharnessed than to pull a cart containing two little girls.
Ruth now hardly knew what to do. Perhaps Winifred might be coming closely behind the pony.
"Perhaps I ought to wait and see if she is coming," thought Ruth, puzzled and uncertain as to the right course to take. Before she could decide she saw the gleam of a lantern, and heard the wheels of a carriage coming rapidly over the road, and without a moment's hesitation she called out: "Stop! Please stop!" and heard a familiar voice respond:
"It's Ruth. It's Ruth." And the light of the lantern showed Gilbert and his mother in Ned Ferris's pony-cart.
In a moment they were standing in the road beside her, and Ruth was telling the story of the woodland road, and of Winifred waiting beside the pony-cart under a big oak tree.
"And Fluff just ran by, headed for home," she concluded.
"I thought it was Fluff who raced past us. I was sure it was he," said Gilbert.