"Oh yes, I expect they are all right. Now then, run, but run carefully," added Kitty. "All the cups are in that basket, and Aunt Pike will be very angry if we break any."
But it was not easy to run at all, or even to hurry down that rugged slope, while carrying five baskets and a rug or two, with a squall catching them at every turn, and the short, dry grass becoming as slippery as glass with the rain; but at long last they reached the foot and the little hut, and there they found Betty struggling with all her might to get Mokus between the shafts of the cart.
"He will have to be taken out again, I expect," said Dan in an aside to Kitty. "She has probably done up every strap wrongly. It is good of her, though, to try."
"I am glad she made Tony stand in under shelter," said Kitty thankfully, as her eye fell on her little brother in the doorway of the hut. "Where is Anna? I suppose she is inside."
"You bet," said Dan shortly. "Anna knows how to take care of herself."
But Anna was not in the shanty, or anywhere within reach of their shouts.
"I expect she is ever so far towards home by now," said Betty absently, quite absorbed in the interest of harnessing Mokus. "She started to walk home as fast as ever she could. I called to her to wait, but she wouldn't listen."
"Oh, well, it's all right; she can't miss the road, and we shall soon overtake her," said Dan. "Now then, in you get."
It was great fun packing themselves into the cart. Betty and Tony, in great spirits, sat in the bottom of it, with a rug drawn over them like a tent, and two little peepholes to peer through, and were as happy and warm as could be. Kitty and Dan sat upon the seat with the other rug round their shoulders, and the moment they were ready and had gathered up the reins, Mokus, who had been standing flapping his long ears crossly when the rain struck him particularly smartly, started off at a really quick trot, which covered the ground rapidly, but rattled and jolted the cart to such an extent that it was all Dan and Kitty could do to keep their seats, while as for the two in the bottom of the cart, they were tossed about like parched peas in a frying-pan. And oh! how they all laughed! It is not always the funniest or wittiest things that cause the most laughter, and somehow to-day the sight of Mokus flying along on his little hoofs, the dreary scene, the lashing rain, themselves wrapped up like a lot of gipsies, with the risk of finding themselves at any moment tossed out and left sitting in the mud, made them laugh and laugh until they ached. And all the time Dan kept on saying the silliest things, and waving his whip about his head as though he were a Roman driving a chariot drawn by fiery horses, urging Mokus on to a more and more reckless pace, until at last they had to beg him to stop, they were aching so with laughter.
But except for some forlorn-looking geese on the common, who hissed at them as they passed, they did not meet a living creature the whole of the way they went.