Thus urged, he finally turned back. She permitted her horse to move along slowly, the rein lying loose upon its neck. She was buried in deep thought when a sheep suddenly started up by the roadside and gave the horse a fright. An inexperienced horsewoman would have been thrown from the saddle by the sidelong leap of the animal. June maintained her seat and caught up the reins. But the horse had the bit between his teeth. With ears set flat back, he was running away. Through a gate he tore, and away across an open field the girl was carried.
Merriwell, cutting across that field to reach the highway, saw what had happened. Immediately he headed the black thoroughbred in pursuit of the runaway. It was a wild and thrilling race, for neither walls nor fences nor ditches could check the frightened animal that was bearing June. Over them all he sailed. The girl heard some one shouting to her, and, half turning her head, she caught a glimpse of the pursuer.
“Dick!” she breathed.
But she could not understand his words, although she fancied they contained a warning. Ahead of her loomed another stone wall. She wondered if the runaway would not be turned by it. Not until the animal was sailing over that wall did she realize what lay beyond it. A moment later horse and girl struck with a mighty splash in the placid water of a small river.
Carried from the saddle, June rose to the surface just in time to see the black horse bearing Dick Merriwell come flying over the wall above her.
What followed seemed like a dream to June. She knew Dick clutched her with his strong hand, and she had good sense enough to give herself up without struggle or effort, so that he was finally able to bring her unharmed to the low bank on the far side of the little river.
The horses had swam out and were grazing in companionable contentment upon the grass as Dick and June, dripping wet, sat on the bank and looked at each other.
“Well,” said Merriwell, with a light laugh, “I hope this doesn’t give you a cold.”
“I hope it does!” she cried. “I told Dale last night that I wanted to catch cold and have pneumonia and die. Now this is my chance.”
“It surely is,” agreed Dick. “But why this sudden morbid desire for death? What’s the matter?”