“Don’t tell me that,” she said. “I know better. You’re just as brave as you can be.”
“Well, I never knowed it before,” he said wonderingly. “If I am brave, it is something I never found out about myself. My, but I was scared when I saw that horse run!”
“What will Dick think when he finds us gone?”
“Oh, he will foller us, he will foller us,” nodded the boy. “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll meet him coming.”
“But I will never dare mount that horse again.”
“Course you won’t. You will take my horse. I will ride that critter. Just let him try to run with me!” He said this as if he really fancied he could control the animal in case it attempted to run away with him.
The horses were submissive enough while the hunchback removed and changed their saddles. The animal that had lately seemed crazy and frantic with fear was now calm and docile. Apparently the furious run had worked off the effect of the loco weed.
After a while, Abe did what he could to assist Felicia to mount, and then managed to scramble and pull himself with no small difficulty to the back of the other horse. They turned their animals to retrace the course over which they had come. This, however, was to prove no small task, for the runaway had twisted and turned in a score of different directions during its flight; and, shortly after entering the hills, Abe found himself quite bewildered as to the proper course they should pursue. This fact, however, he tried to conceal from Felicia, knowing it would add to her alarm. So they rode on and on until finally they came to a tiny stream that lay in the little hollows of a broad watercourse. There they found water for themselves and horses.
Now, for the first time, Felicia began to suspect that they were not retracing the course over which they had come.
“I don’t remember this place,” she said.