“Stop him, Bunny! Stop Toby from running away!” begged Sue.
For a moment her brother did not answer. He was as surprised as Sue at Toby’s strange action. Then, as Bunny saw that the reins had slipped away, he cried:
“I can’t stop him, Sue!”
“Why not?” she asked, still holding to the side of the pony cart as it lurched from side to side of the street.
“I can’t stop him ’cause I can’t pull on the reins,” Bunny answered. “I can’t reach ’em!”
“You—you’ve got to!” insisted Sue. “We don’t want to be runned away with and thrown out! Stop him, Bunny!”
Bunny knew that he would have to do something, and the best thing he could think of was to reach forward and grasp the reins. He started to do this, leaning over the dashboard.
But just then a strange dog ran out of a yard and began barking at Toby. Patter, who was running alongside the cart, not riding in it this time, barked and growled at the strange dog. This sound seemed to make the little horse go faster, and he dashed off so suddenly that, as Bunny leaned toward the dashboard, the little fellow almost went “overboard,” as he said later.
“Oh!” cried Sue, as she saw what had happened. “Look out!”
“Oh!” cried Bunny Brown. He, too, was frightened. He managed to get back again to the seat from which he had risen, and there he sat, safe for a little while, at least. And so was Sue. She was on the seat across from Bunny.