“Come!” said Grandmother, holding out her hand. “I’ll help you find your sister. Isn’t that a wagon coming down the road? Perhaps the driver will have seen her.”
“That isn’t a wagon,” said Kenneth, after looking at it a minute in silence.
“Yes, it is, boy,—a two-horse wagon. Don’t you see how big it is?”
Kenneth looked again, and broke into a joyous shout. “It’s Eunice!” he said, and darted off up the road.
“It can’t be!” said Grandmother. “No, it isn’t—yes—no! Haven’t I lived in this atmosphere long enough not to be fooled by it again?”
For it was Eunice, and the reason that Grandmother had taken her for a two-horse wagon was, that she was carrying the saddle,—big, heavy thing though it was,—and the strange effect of the western air had made her into a sort of mirage. As they approached, she suddenly dropped to her natural size, and hurried to meet them, with one long stirrup trailing in the dust.
“I’m so sorry, Grandmother,” she said; “but I turned around to look at his tail, and the belt burst.”
“The girth, you mean. Then Ole didn’t throw you?”
“No, he just swelled and broke the belt, and then the saddle came off.”
“And you weren’t hurt?”