And then followed more blows, mingled with a low cry in a female voice.
Rounding the curve, Frank and Barney saw a man and a girl who were mounted on handsome horses. The man was belaboring with his riding whip the horse he bestrode, while the animal danced about, refusing to go ahead.
At every blow of the whip the horse under the girl started in fear, trembling and snorting. She was obliged to give him much of her attention, but she sharply called to the man:
“Don’t whip Firefoot that way, Cousin Stephen! He is not used to your harsh ways, and——”
“I’ll make him used to them!” grated the man, his face flushed with anger. “He is a miserable brute anyway!”
“But not half such a brute as the man on his back!” muttered Frank.
“Roight ye are, me b’y,” agreed Barney. “It’s a foine lookin’ crayther he’s batin’ there.”
“And a fine creature it is,” declared Frank; “but it will not take long to spoil it in that way. The fellow doesn’t know how to ride, and he has confused the horse between yanking and whipping it. It’s likely the creature stopped and began to rear and back because it did not know what its rider wanted.”
The sight of the approaching bicycles seemed to startle the horse more than ever, and it bolted out of the road with its rider, who was nearly swept from the saddle by an overhanging limb.
Again the man fiercely applied the whip. Then he, too, saw the bicyclists, and cried to them in a snarling voice: