“Look here, Felicia,” he said. “We’re both so excited we don’t hit any sort of a trail and stick to it for shucks. If anything whatever has happened to my pard, I want to know it right quick. Keep cool and tell me all about it. What was it that happened?”
“But I tell you I don’t know—I don’t know,” came faintly from the girl. “We rode some miles to the south. It was splendid. We laughed, and chatted, and had such a fine time. Then, when we turned to come back, I challenged Dick to a race. My horse was just eager to let himself out, and we raced. I had the lead, but my horse was so hard-bitted that I couldn’t look back. Two or three times I called to Dick, and he answered. I heard his horse right behind me, and felt sure he was near. Once I thought he was trying to pass me, and I let my horse out more.
“I don’t know how far I went that way, but it was a long, long distance. After a while his horse seemed letting up. He didn’t push him so hard. Then I pulled up some and called back to him again, but he didn’t answer. I had to fight my horse, for he had the bit in his teeth and was obstinate. After a while I managed to turn, and then I saw something that gave me an awful jump. Dick’s horse was a long distance away, and was going at a trot, but Dick was not in the saddle. The saddle was empty, and Dick was nowhere to be seen.”
“Great tarantulas! Great horned toads! Great Panhandle!” exploded Buckhart. “You don’t mean to tell me that my pard let any onery horse dump him out of the saddle? Say, I won’t believe it! Say, I can’t believe it! Why, he can ride like a circus performer! He is a regular centaur, if I ever saw one! Whatever is this joke you’re putting up on me, Felicia?”
“No joke, no joke!” she hastily asserted. “It’s the truth, Brad—the terrible truth! Dick was not on the horse. I don’t know what happened to him, but he wasn’t there. As soon as I could I rode back to find him. I rode and rode, looking for him everywhere. I thought something must have happened to him that caused him to fall from the saddle. I wondered that I had heard no cry from him—no sound.”
“And you didn’t find him?”
She shook her head.
“I found nothing of him anywhere. I rode until I was where we started to race. After that I had called to him, and he had answered me more than once. I know that, at first, he was close behind me.”
“Jumping jingoes!” spluttered Brad. “This beats anything up to date! You hear me warble! You must have missed him, somehow.”
“It is not possible, Brad. I stuck to the road and followed it all the way through the chaparral, beyond which we had started to race this way.”