Jim was nearly back to the town when a horse and rig appeared coming rapidly toward him. He heard a shout and saw a man run from a house to look. The horse was going very fast and shaking his head; something was wrong. As it came toward him he saw that the driver was a young girl. She was holding with all her strength to the reins, but the horse, a tall, rawboned creature, was past control. Horses Jim surely understood. He stepped well aside, then wheeling as the runaway went past, he ran his best. For a little while a swift man can run with a horse, and in that little while Jim was alongside, had seized the back of the seat, and, with a spurt and a mighty leap, had tumbled into the rig beside the driver. Instantly she held the reins toward him and gasped:
"I can't hold him; he's running away." Then, as Jim did not at once seize the reins, she hurriedly said: "Here, take them."
"No," he said with amazing calmness, "you can control him. Don't be afraid. You hurt yourself pulling; ease up. Keep him straight, that's all."
The sense of power in his presence and matter-of-fact tone restored her nerve. She slackened a little on the reins. The horse had believed he was running away; now he began to doubt it. She had been telegraphing terror along the lines, and now she began to telegraph control.
"Speak to him, just as you would if he were all right," said Jim in a low voice.
The girl had been pale and scared-looking, but she responded to the suggestion and talked to the horse.
"Good boy, good boy, Stockings; keep it up," just as though she had been putting him to his utmost.
There was open fareway straight ahead and little to fear so long as the horse kept in the road and met no other rig. In a quarter of a mile he began to slacken his pace.
"Will you take the lines now?" the girl asked shyly.
"No, it isn't necessary, and the horse would feel the change and think he had beaten you."