So it is not surprising that, after a comparatively short run, the horses slackened their pace.
"Sit down! I'm comin'!" cried Sandy, and now Alice could hear him panting behind her.
In another instant she felt a jar on the machine, and then someone reached over her shoulder, and took the reins from her hands.
"I'll pull 'em down!" cried Sandy, balancing himself on a part of the machine, back of the seat on which Alice was riding.
The young farmer sawed hard on the lines and this, added to the fact that they had had enough of the hard run, caused the animals to slacken speed. They slowed down to a trot, and then to a walk, finally coming to a halt. And just in time, too, for right in front of them was a big stone fence, into which they might have crashed.
"Oh! Oh dear!" gasped Alice. "I—I think I'm going to faint!"
"Don't! Please don't, Miss!" begged Sandy, more frightened at that prospect, evidently, than he had been at the runaway. "I—I don't know what to do when ladies faint. Really I don't I—I never saw one faint, Miss. Please don't!"
"All right—then I won't," laughed Alice, by an effort conquering her inclination. But she felt a great weakness, now that the strain was over, and she trembled as Sandy helped her down from the machine. In another moment Ruth and the others came up, and Ruth clasped her sister in her arms.
"You poor dear!" she whispered.
"Oh, I'm all right now," said Alice, bravely. "Perhaps there wasn't as much danger as I imagined."