Up flashed the cent into the sunshine, then down to the teamster's feet, where it made a deep, round hole in the snow.
"Heads it is, doctor," cried the man, fishing his coin up in a handful of flakes.
"True enough! then I will ride over the hill. That toss up decides it."
"You'll never get there, doctor; drifts over your head."
The doctor was ploughing his way up the Bungy road, and did not seem to hear this prediction. He was evidently very anxious to go forward, and encouraged his horse with sharp ejaculations, as they approached the hills. The animal understood it all, and lending himself to the work, stamped and pursued his way onward with the perseverance of a veteran; but his progress was necessarily slow, and the doctor's broad forehead gathered into an anxious frown under his cap.
"Poor thing—poor thing—she may be dead before we get there," he muttered more than once, and then he would commence expostulating with the horse, who, good fellow, was doing his very best. Just as they were ascending the brow of the hill, a woman was seen in advance, wildly pushing her way through the snow. She saw the doctor, and waved her arms in distracted haste, beckoning him to come on.
The doctor must have been insane with anxiety to have ventured on it. But he seized one of his crutches and gave the horse a back-handed blow. A plunge that almost unseated the imprudent man—a storm of snow about his ears, and the animal broke into one of the most extraordinary gaits that ever a horseman experienced—backing down, rushing forward, and making side movements that came very near landing the doctor head foremost in a huge wave-like drift that covered the fence close by to its topmost rail.
At last, with great coaxing and expostulation, this state of things was reduced to the most awkward attempt at a trot, which the exasperated animal persisted in, though his efforts were broken up at every other step.
The woman stood for a minute knee-deep in the snow. She only ceased wringing her hands to beckon him forward. When certain that he was doing his best, she turned and walked quickly up the road, and entered Mrs. Allen's house.
"I thought so—I feared it," muttered the doctor, "but who ever saw riding like this? It's like wading through a desert of cotton wool. Don't you think so, old fellow?"