CHAPTER VI.
JESSICA’S FIRST GIRL FRIEND.
The screams came from a girl of Jessica’s own age, whom Buster had ridden down and thrown to the pavement. But they were instantly taken up and repeated by a score of throats, while a crowd assembled on the spot, as if it had risen from the ground itself.
“Oh! have I killed her?” cried “Little Captain,” as swiftly realizing the accident, and almost as swiftly, leaping from her saddle to bend above the girl who now lay with closed eyes and white face, apparently unconscious.
“Now, that’s awful!” cried somebody. “It’s against the law for folks to ride that gait!”
“Arrest her, officer! Don’t let her get away!” advised another on-looker, as a policeman laid his hand on the broncho’s bridle and held the creature still, save for an exciting trembling through all its frame.
“I’m not going to ‘get away’! I want to take care of this poor girl!” retorted Jessica, lifting her head and discovering the officer. “O sir! I am so sorry. We didn’t see her, Buster nor I, and what can I do? Is there a hospital near? Is she—Do you think—she can’t be dead, all in a little minute like that! Tell me, help me—help her—Please, please!”
At the mention of hospital the girl still lying on the pavement opened her eyes and tried to rise, and willing hands helped her to do so. She did gain her feet, quivering and terrified still, yet managing to protest with vigor:
“No, no, no! I won’t go! Not to a hospital—I won’t, I won’t! See? I ain’t hurted. I can walk—I shan’t—I shan’t!”
In truth she was not really injured save by the shock of falling, which had rendered her senseless for a little; until that word “hospital”—so dreaded by the very poor—pierced her consciousness. Buster had run against and knocked her down, but it was the blow upon the stones which had done the most mischief.