“Chris!” she said, so softly that it was almost a whisper. Then she sighed, “Thank God.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” he cried to her, putting into his voice all the heartiness he could command, which was not much, for he had himself been under no mean nervous strain.
He showed the reaction he was undergoing, when he swung down out of the saddle. He began with a brave muscular display as he lifted his leg over, but ended, on his feet, leaning against the limp Dolly for support. Lute flashed out of her saddle, and her arms were about him in an embrace of thankfulness.
“I know where there is a spring,” she said, a moment later.
They left the horses standing untethered, and she led her lover into the cool recesses of the thicket to where crystal water bubbled from out the base of the mountain.
“What was that you said about Dolly’s never cutting up?” he asked, when the blood had been stanched and his nerves and pulse-beats were normal again.
“I am stunned,” Lute answered. “I cannot understand it. She never did anything like it in all her life. And all animals like you so—it’s not because of that. Why, she is a child’s horse. I was only a little girl when I first rode her, and to this day—”
“Well, this day she was everything but a child’s horse,” Chris broke in. “She was a devil. She tried to scrape me off against the trees, and to batter my brains out against the limbs. She tried all the lowest and narrowest places she could find. You should have seen her squeeze through. And did you see those bucks?”
Lute nodded.
“Regular bucking-bronco proposition.”