Bunny began to pull back on the lines, and he called:
"Whoa! Whoa there! Stop now! Don't run away any more, pony boy!"
But the pony did not seem to want to stop. Perhaps he thought if he stopped, now, the barking dog would bite his heels. But the dog had given up the chase, and was not in sight. Neither was the running boy.
The boy had found that his short legs were not long enough to keep up with the longer legs of the pony. Besides, a pony has four legs, and everybody knows that four legs can go faster than two. So the boy stopped running.
"Can you stop the pony?" asked Sue, after Bunny had pulled on the lines a number of times, and had cried "Whoa!" very often. "Can you stop him?"
"I—I guess so," answered the little boy. "But maybe you'd better help me, Sue. You pull on one line, and I'll pull on the other. That will stop him."
Bunny passed one of the pony's reins to his sister and held to the other. The children were sitting in front of the cart, Bunny on one side and Sue on the other. Both of them began to pull on the lines, but still the pony did not stop.
"Pull harder, Bunny! Pull harder!" cried Sue.
"I am pulling as hard as I can," he said. "You pull harder, Sue."
But still the pony did not want to stop. If anything, he was going faster than ever. Yes, he surely was going faster, for it was down hill now, and you know, as well as I do, that you can go faster down hill, than you can on the level, or up hill.