They went on, and noon came, and both Pinky and the little girl were hungry and thirsty.
Pinky smelled water—or saw it. He insisted on starting off to one side of the narrow trail they had been following.
Rose was afraid to leave that trail, for it seemed to her that a path along which people had ridden enough to make a deep rut in the sward must be a path that was more or less used all the time. She expected to meet somebody by sticking to this path, or else come to a house.
But here was a shallow stream, and Pinky insisted on trotting down to it and wading right in.
The water was cool, and the pony cooled his feet in it as well as his nose. He had jerked the reins out of Rose's hands when he had sunk his nose in the water, and she had no way of controlling him.
"You bad, bad Pinky!" cried Rose, leaning down, clinging with one hand to his mane and reached with the other hand to seize the reins. But she could not reach them. She lost her stirrups. She slipped forward off the saddle and upon the pony's neck.
At this Pinky was startled. He tried to scramble out of the brook. He stepped on a stone that rolled. And then he staggered and half fell and over his head and right into the middle of the brook flew Rose Bunker! It was a most astonishing overturn, to say nothing of the danger of it.
Splash went Rose into a pool of water! But worse than getting wet was the fact that one of her ankles came in contact with a stone, and the pain of the hurt made Rose scream aloud. Oh, that knock did so hurt the little girl!
"Now! Now see what—what you've done!" cried Rose, when she could speak. "You naughty, naughty Pinky!"
Pinky had snorted and run a few steps up the bank. Now he was grazing contentedly—not trying to run away from the little girl at all, but quite inconsiderate of her, just the same. He let Rose sit on the edge of the brook, with her hurt foot in the water, crying as hard as she could cry, and he acted as though he had no interest in Rose at all!