“I aint scared none at what you an’ dat hawse doin’. He’s got sense and—” added Jefferson with concession—“so has you. I aint got no time ter be a troublin’ ’bout you-all. It’s dese yo’ng ladies I has ter bat my eyes at; an’ dey shore do keep me busy sometimes. Now what I tell you? Look at dat?” and as though in sympathy with Beverly’s schemes, Chicadee, the little mare Petty Gaylord was riding chose that moment to shy at some leaves which fluttered to the ground and, of course, Petty shrieked, and then followed up the shriek with the “tee-hee-hee,” which punctuated every tenth word she spoke whether apropos or not.
That was exactly the cue Beverly needed. A slight pressure of her knee upon Apache’s side was sufficient. He was off like a comet, and to all intents and purposes entirely beyond his rider’s control.
Sally and Aileen laughed outright. Petty stopped her giggle to scream: “Oh, she’s being run away with!”
“Not so much as it would seem,” was Hope MacLeod’s quiet comment as she laid in place a lock of Satin Gloss’s mane, and quieted him after his sympathetic plunge.
“Well ef she is, she is, but I’m bettin’ she knows whar she a-runnin’ at,” said Andrew Jackson Jefferson more quietly than the situation seemed to warrant. “But just de same I’m thinkin’ we might as well fool oursefs some,” and he hastened his pace, the others doing likewise. It would never do to let one of his charges be run away with and not make an effort to save her from a possible calamity.
CHAPTER VIII
CLIMAXES
Meanwhile the runaways were having the very time of their lives. Not since that two-mile race to Four Corners for the letter which proved the wedge to divide her own and Athol’s ways, had Beverly been able to “let out a notch,” as she put it. Nor had the little broncho been permitted to twinkle his legs as they were now twinkling over that soft dirt road. Virginia roads were made for equestrians, not automobiles. Head thrust forward as far as his graceful slender neck permitted, ears laid back for the first unwelcome word to halt, eyes flashing with exhilaration, and nostrils wide for the deep, full inhalations and exhalations which sent the rich blood coursing through each pulsing artery, little Apache was enjoying his freedom as much as his rider. In two seconds they were at the top of a rise of ground, down at the further side and out of sight of the others. Then, to make the exhibition realistic, Beverly drew out her hat pin, gave it a toss to the side of the road, and the wind completed the job by whisking her soft felt hat off her head and landing it upon the roadside bush.