"Too high for Johnny. I must tell her not to do that again," he commented, as he noticed during his own flight that the top rail was split from contact with the first horse's heels.
Down the hill and across the field tore the sorrel, leaping the branch, and slackening to allow the gray's approach only when he came to a fence whose position at the top of a sharp ascent forbade his taking it.
Sydney looked back impatiently as Bob covered the dozen lengths between them and swung off to open the gate.
"You might wait for a fellow," he grumbled, but already the girl was through, and her white blouse and ruddy hair shone half-way across the unenclosed meadow upon which she had entered. For the first time her pale face impressed Bob.
"Looks like she saw something," he thought, with a remnant of old superstition. "I do believe she thinks there's going to be bloodshed." And with a view to reassuring her, he caught up with her in the path through the belt of woods that led from the field to the road. Their horses were nose on tail, and of necessity going slowly.
"Sydney!" he cried, "O-oh, Sydney! You don't think it's serious, do you? Because——"
Here the path debouched into the open road, and Johnny was off again before Bob could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney, had sounded to her only like a desire for his own reassurance, and had alarmed her more than ever.
A mad feeling within pricked her to tear on without slackening. She felt that she could have galloped to the very top of the mountain without fatigue. Her horsewoman's intelligence, however, warned her to think of her animal, and she took him along quietly through the open place before the post-office, giving Bob a chance to catch up.
He was thoroughly out of temper now. Never before had Sydney been so careless of him. He couldn't understand it; but he was beginning to realize that she was taking the adventure seriously, and, with boyish malice, he resolved to make no further effort to undeceive her.