“I b’lieve I would, provided I wanted to,” Lou agreed placidly. Then her tone changed. “There’s somebody comin’ up the road from Hudsondale like all in creation was after ’em.”
Indeed, the sound of a horse’s mad gallop up the steep road by which they had come was plainly to be heard increasing in volume, and the grating jar of wheels as though a wagon were being thrown from side to side.
“Think it’s a runaway?” Jim rose and 35strained his eyes into the darkness at the farther end of the bridge.
“No; driver’s drunk, maybe,” Lou responded. “The horse’s dead beat an’ he’s lashin’ it on. Listen!”
Jim heard the wild gallop falter and drop into a weary trot, only to leap forward again with a wild scramble of hoofs on the rocky road as though the wretched animal was spurred on by sudden pain, and he clenched his hands.
As though reading his thoughts, Lou remarked:
“Only a beast himself would treat a horse that way. The folks at the farm where I was treated theirs somethin’ terrible. If he don’t look out he’ll go over the side of the bridge.”
Jim had already started for the road in front of the mill, and Lou followed him, just as a perilously swaying lantern came to view, showing an old-fashioned carriage of the “buggy” type containing a single occupant and drawn by a horse which was streaked with lather.
The light wagon hit the bridge with a 36bounce which almost sent it careening over into the rushing stream below, and at the same moment Lou uttered an odd exclamation, more of anger than fear, and straightened up to her full height.
“It’s Max!” she informed Jim. “You git back behind the mill; you ain’t fit to fight─”