Barbara put her head out of the open window. She could see nothing but a cloud of dust far down the road. Yet the pounding sounded louder every moment.
Then she knew. The noise came from the furious feet of runaway horses. And they were coming past the house with their helpless, unknown victims.
What could Barbara do? Her mother was asleep upstairs and there was no man about the place. There was no other house near. Besides, the slightest delay might prove fatal.
All this seemed to flash through Barbara’s brain in a second. She knew she must act. Swiftly and easily as a boy she vaulted the open window, pausing only to snatch a closed umbrella that leaned against the sill. How glad she was she had forgotten to put it away in the closet when she came in from the shower yesterday!
In an instant the girl sped through the gate and out into the road, opening her umbrella as she ran.
There she paused, squarely in front of the approaching dust cloud, very near now. She could hear the click of the stones, cast aside by the flying feet of the horses, and she caught a glimpse of two black heads, wild-eyed and foam-flecked, through the whirling dust.
Barbara strained her eyes to locate hanging bridles. But meantime, swiftly and mechanically, she was opening and shutting the big black umbrella.
“If they’ll only stop!” she murmured.
And they did. Fear-crazed already, their legs trembling after a terrific run, the horses dared not seek encounter with that horrible bat-like creature that seemed to await them.
Scarcely five feet away, their wild pace broke. They hesitated, and Barbara flung herself forward and seized the dangling bridles. For a moment she pulled on them with wrists of steel, but it was not necessary. The horses drooped their weary heads and gladly stood still.