"Whoa! Whoa! What in thunder—?" roared the captain. "Port! Port, you lubber!"
He jerked violently on the left rein. That rein was, like the horse and the buggy, of more than middle age. Leather of that age must be persuaded, not jerked. The rein broke just beyond Sears' hand, flew over the dashboard and dragged in the road. The driver's weight came solidly upon the right hand rein. The Foam Flake dashed across the highway again, head-first into the woods this time.
Then followed a few long—very long minutes of scratching and rocking and pounding. Sears heard himself shouting something about the Broken rein he must get that rein.
"It's all right! It's all right, Elizabeth!" he shouted. "I'm goin' to lean out over his back, if I can and—O—oh!"
The last was a groan, involuntarily wrung from him by the pain in his knees. He had put an unaccustomed strain upon them and they were remonstrating. He shut his teeth, swallowed another groan, and leaned out over the dash, his hand clutching for the harness of the rocketing, bumping Foam Flake.
Then he realized that some one else was leaning over that dashboard, was in fact almost out of the buggy and swinging by the harness and the shaft.
"Elizabeth!" he shouted, in wild alarm. "Elizabeth, what are you doin'? Stop!"
But she was back, panting a little, but safe.
"I have the rein," she panted. "Give me the other, Cap'n Kendrick. I can handle him, I know. Give me the rein. Sit down! Oh, please! You will hurt yourself again!"
But he was in no mood to sit down. He snatched the end of the broken rein from her hand, taking it and the command again simultaneously.