Eve managed to climb up into the cart, still holding the snorting, pawing colt by the strap.
“Drive on! drive on!” she gasped, looking back at the several ill-looking and worse dressed women who were running toward them.
“Go on!” urged Laura to the mare, and Old Peggy started back up the hill, while Eve towed Jinks behind. Suddenly, however, the bushes parted, and a roughly dressed fellow, with a red handkerchief tied around his head in lieu of a cap, stepped out into the road. He carried a gun in the hollow of his arm, the muzzle of which was turned threateningly toward the cart and the two girls in it. The two barrels looked as big around as cannon in the eyes of Laura and Evangeline Sitz!
“Hey, there!” advised the ugly looking fellow. “You ladies better stop a bit.”
“It’s Pocock!” whispered Laura.
“I know it,” returned Eve, in the same tone.
“That horse you’re leadin’ belongs to me,” said Pocock, with an ugly scowl.
“You know better, Hebron,” exclaimed Eve, bravely. “It belongs to my father.”
“It may look like your father’s colt,” said Pocock. “But I bought her of a gypsy, and it ain’t the same an—i—mile.”
“The old mare knows her,” said Laura, quickly, as the colt nuzzled up to Peggy and the gray mare turned around to look upon the colt with favorable eye.