At first it seemed as if Brownie, too, was tired and willing to be guided in the way she should go, so Dudley began to have confidence and bravado.
“Look, Paul, this is the way to make them wheel!” called he, digging his heel into the colt’s flank.
Wheel Brownie did, all right! She was off in a jiffy, circling around the pasture, jumping the familiar hummocks in her way, and finally sailing over the low stone wall, then racing lickety-split down the lane.
Dudley had no objections to thumping over the soft sod of the lane as it really was preferable to the boulders in the pasture. But the colt became vexed with the boy’s close clinging and with a tossing of her mane resorted to an equine trick—that of trying to brush off an unwelcome rider.
Try as he would, Dudley could not prevent Brownie from passing under the low-hanging branches near the end of the lane. Believing “discretion to be the better part of valour” the boy slipped off before he was “sawed” off by the neck.
The moment the colt realised her pest was gone she kicked up her heels and snorted with derision.
Paul hugged himself in wild delight when he saw Dudley carefully limping back to the pasture, but their troubles were soon forgotten by hearing the Captain call for aides in catching some chickens that were needed on Sunset Island.
The milder delights of rural life—chickens, pigs, cows, yea, even sheep, came in for fervid attention after that.
Then, early in the afternoon, well laden with baskets full of fresh vegetables as well as the broilers, eggs, and butter, the three mariners sailed the seas again to Sunset Isle.
About five o’clock there came signs of a gathering storm and the sky grew black in the north. The wind had changed and blew from the northeast in increasing violence. The Captain became anxious but saying nothing to Mrs. Remington, trained the spyglass in the direction from which the two boys and the dory should first be seen.