Once more, under the guiding hand, he dashed forward as if it were wings that carried him so lightly and swiftly over the ground. And as he flew on, Shirley patted him softly on the neck and spoke low words of encouragement.
The noble animal’s ears stood straight and there was fire in his eyes. He seemed to say: “We will save them if it is possible.”
Rounding a sudden turn in the road, Shirley made out a buggy going leisurely along. At the same moment the roar of the water came more plainly to her ears.
She raised her voice in a shout that rose above the sound of roaring water behind—rose above the sounds of clattering hoofs and above the voices of the occupants of the buggy themselves.
The buggy stopped, the man’s face peered out. As he saw Shirley dashing along the road after him, a sudden understanding of what was wrong came to him. Raising an arm, he waved it as a signal that the girl’s warning had been understood, and started his horse on a run.
Shirley breathed a great sigh of relief and dashed on after the buggy, which was now going at terrific speed, rocking crazily and threatening every moment to turn over in the road.
Coming suddenly to an open field at the left side of the road, the man sent the buggy dashing across it, and made, as fast as his horse could go, for a point where the ground rose sheer for perhaps a hundred feet.
Shirley sped after the buggy.
Coming to this abrupt rise, they were forced to search for a means of clambering up it. The woman in the buggy, at the man’s command, sprang from the seat and dashed hurriedly up the steep hill. The man in the meantime stopped to unhitch his horse, that the animal might have a chance for its life.