"Oh, David," she said, gurgling at the memory. "Did you know that? I curled it for three nights on bits of paper that I tore out of the back of father's diary. And now I don't care what it looks like. See how I've changed!"
And she leaned against him, holding the arm and laughing at her past frivolity. His eyes slid back to the horses, but he did not see them. With a slight, listening smile he gave himself up to the intoxication of the moment, feeling the pressure of her body soft against his arm.
The reins which hung loose suddenly jerked through his fingers and the mare fell crashing to her knees. She was down before he knew it, head forward, and then with a quivering subsidence, prone in a tangle of torn harness. He urged her up with a jerked rein, she made a struggling effort, but fell back, and a groan, singularly human in its pain, burst from her. The wagon behind pounded almost on them, the mules crowding against each other. Daddy John's voice rising in a cracked hail. Courant and Leff came up from the rear, splashing through the river.
"What's happened?" said the former.
"It's Bess," said David, his face pallid with contrition. "I hope to God she's not hurt. Up, Bess, there! Up on your feet, old girl!"
At her master's voice the docile brute made a second attempt to rise, but again sank down, her sides panting, her head strained up.
Leff leaped off his horse.
"Damn her, I'll make her get up," he said, and gave her a violent kick on the ribs. The mare rolled an agonized eye upon him, and with a sudden burst of fury he rained kick after kick on her face.
David gave a strange sound, a pinched, thin cry, as if wrung from him by unbearable suffering, and leaped over the wheel. He struck Leff on the chest, a blow so savage and unexpected that it sent him staggering back into the stream, where, his feet slipping among the stones, he fell sprawling.
"Do that again and I'll kill you," David cried, and moving to the horse stood over it with legs spread and fists clinched for battle.