Ned and Nat were shut off from the front seat by their mother and the two girls. Tavia, beside screaming, seized the railing of the seat. Aunt Winnie clung to her, and would have seized Dorothy as well, but the latter flung off her aunt’s hand and plunged over the back of the driver’s seat.
Frightened as she was, brave Dorothy knew that it was her chance, and her chance only. As the mustangs gathered their feet under them and whipped the tottering old coach up the side of the arroyo, Dorothy slid into the place the Mexican had deserted.
Fortunately she had watched him manipulate the brakes. And the mustangs had the drag of the coach behind them going up hill. Going down it might have been a very different story. True it was, that when the panting, straining horses came out upon the level at the top of the rise, they were glad to stop to breathe. With Dorothy giving them the brakes and the old Grand Army Veteran on the lines, the four rascals were glad to stop.
Up came José Morale, having left the excited old lady, and the excited hen, at the bottom of the hill. What he said in his own language to the horses was a plenty! But in the next breath he praised Dorothy for her pluck in most extravagant terms.
As for that matter, they all praised her; but Dorothy would not listen.
“Somebody had to do it—why not me?” she demanded. “Now, Ned and Nat, you run back there and help Mrs. Petterby catch that hen, and then bring them both on. We’ll wait here for you.”
It was then that Tavia had a slight attack of hysterics. “That hen will be the death of me! she will! she will!” gasped the girl. “Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous in all your life?”
“Now, don’t laugh and make Mrs. Petterby feel as though you were laughing at her,” admonished Dorothy.
“But if we take her to ride with us, and Ophelia lays an egg in this stage, and the egg hatches out a chicken,” gasped Tavia, “that chicken will be a nervous wreck from the start. At least, it will be afflicted with St. Vitus Dance.”
“Do be reasonable!” exclaimed Dorothy. “There! the boys have caught Ophelia.” She was standing up on the stage roof, looking back at the little group below. Suddenly a man on pony-back appeared over the last rise the coach had crossed, and headed down into the hollow.