"It's beginning to look worse and worse! Don't waste a minute. We must reach the pass down there before it catches us. Otherwise we'll be in a jam."
The horses sensed the excitement and the tenseness that goes before a storm and raced through the creek-bed without any urging. Even the old horse, Dolly, needed neither spur nor whip. Snorting and blowing in good earnest, she held her own with the more spirited animals as they picked their way around boulders and pools of water.
At the first drop of rain, Kit drew in her pony. "We can't make it, girls! We'll never make it in time," she cried in a panic of fear.
"Of course we can make it. There it is right ahead of us," Enid encouraged them. "We can get through the pass."
"No, we can't!" declared Kit anxiously.
"Then we'd better stay right here where it's dry," said Bet.
"We can't do that either," screamed Kit. "In ten minutes this will be a raging torrent instead of a little trickle of water. You don't understand."
It was not often that Kit lost her presence of mind, but the responsibility of looking after the girls quite unnerved her.
"Then what shall we do?" asked Shirley, who never got excited or lost her head.
Kit looked at the canyon walls on both sides. They were steep, they seemed straight up.