“Get off and let us have a try at him,” cried one of the boys who had been watching admiringly.
For answer, Joanne, her wits sharpened by the emergency, jerked Chico around quickly to head him away from the group. “Go, Chico, go!” she cried, giving him a slight touch of the whip, and off went Chico like the wind. Joanne clenched her teeth and sat steadily, the boys staring after her.
At the cross roads Dr. Selden had paused to examine the ground which might show the impress of Chico’s hoofs and so indicate the way Joanne had gone. But before he had completed his examination down the road came horse and rider, Joanne’s hair flying, her eyes sparkling, her face tense.
“Oh, Grad! Grad!” she cried at sight of him. “How did you know? How did you know?”
“Know what?” inquired Dr. Selden frowningly.
“About me and those horrid boys.”
“So there were horrid boys,” he returned accusingly. “What do you mean, miss, by dashing off this way by yourself? Who gave you permission?”
“Well, nobody,” returned Joanne hanging her head, but looking up from under her lashes with a queer little smile which suggested that tears were very near. “Nobody did because I didn’t ask any one. Oh, Grad, I can ride, I can, I can. Did you see how I came flying down the road like the wind? I stayed on and Chico behaved like the darling he is. I adore him. No one can ever say again that I don’t know how to ride, for I do.”
“That much is granted,” admitted her grandfather, “but there is this to be said: never, never do you go off alone. Remember. Under no circumstances must you. I forbid it absolutely. If you do so again, I shall have to sell Chico. Now tell me about the boys.”
Joanne, now subdued by the threat to sell Chico, told her story in as few words as possible, then lapsed into silence while her grandfather added a postscript to his lecture.