“But what should she know about bucking?” Lute demanded. “She was never known to buck—never.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Some forgotten instinct, perhaps, long-lapsed and come to life again.”
The girl rose to her feet determinedly. “I’m going to find out,” she said.
They went back to the horses, where they subjected Dolly to a rigid examination that disclosed nothing. Hoofs, legs, bit, mouth, body—everything was as it should be. The saddle and saddle-cloth were innocent of bur or sticker; the back was smooth and unbroken. They searched for sign of snake-bite and sting of fly or insect, but found nothing.
“Whatever it was, it was subjective, that much is certain,” Chris said.
“Obsession,” Lute suggested.
They laughed together at the idea, for both were twentieth-century products, healthy-minded and normal, with souls that delighted in the butterfly-chase of ideals but that halted before the brink where superstition begins.
“An evil spirit,” Chris laughed; “but what evil have I done that I should be so punished?”
“You think too much of yourself, sir,” she rejoined. “It is more likely some evil, I don’t know what, that Dolly has done. You were a mere accident. I might have been on her back at the time, or Aunt Mildred, or anybody.”
As she talked, she took hold of the stirrup-strap and started to shorten it.