"No!" she said. "They haven't any uniform on. I can see— I wish McDonald would let them get ahead."
By this time the yell was in full swing. When it ended the boys waited in vain for a reply.
"Maybe they didn't hear us," one of them shouted. "Let's give them a regular cheer with horns."
Polly, who had been edging up slowly toward the front seat of the sleigh, ever since they had started, gave a sudden spring and climbed up beside McDonald. She knew exactly what was going to happen.
At the first sound of the horn, the horses—already frightened out of their senses by all the singing and yelling—reared up on their hind legs for one terrifying second, and then bolted. Poor McDonald tried to bring them back under his control, but as he realized their condition, his nerve failed him.
"They're gone, Miss," he said in an agonized whisper to Polly, and his hands relaxed on the reins.
The girls, now thoroughly conscious of their danger, hung on for dear life, and some of them cried out.
The deafening shouts and the blowing of the horns kept up in the sleigh behind. The boys thought they were being raced.
Polly thought hard for just the fraction of a minute. Then she took the reins from McDonald's unresisting hands and pulled. She knew that her strength was not equal to stopping those wild runaways, but she felt she could keep them headed straight, and avoid tipping the sleigh. Just as she was trying to remember where she was and to place the hill that she knew was on the right at a cross-road, poor old McDonald fainted and fell backwards into the sleigh.
She didn't dare turn her head, but she heard Lois say: