Query: Freedom?
The dash for liberty had been well carried out, West getting his sturdy pony into a swinging gallop before he had gone far, and keeping it up straight away till he could hear Ingleborough’s shout in close pursuit, when he drew rein a little, till in its efforts to rejoin its companion the second pony raced up alongside.
“Bravo, West, lad!” panted Ingleborough, in a low tone that sounded terribly loud in their ears, which magnified everything in their excitement. “It’s a pity you are not in the regulars!”
“Why?”
“You’d soon be a general!”
“Rubbish!” said West shortly. “Don’t talk or they’ll be on us! Can you hear them coming?”
“No; and I don’t believe they will come! They’ll leave it to me to catch you. I say, I didn’t kill you when I fired, did I?”
“No,” said West, with a little laugh, “but you made me jump each time! The sensation was rather queer.”
“I took aim at an angle of forty-five degrees with the horizon or thereabouts, to be exact,” said Ingleborough pedantically; “and those two, my first shots with a Mauser rifle, no doubt have travelled a couple of miles at what they call a high trajectory. But what glorious luck!”
“Yes; I never dared to hope that the plan would succeed so well.”