It did not come slowly in gentle little drops, but burst upon them in full fury, soaked them to the skin in its first onslaught, enveloped them in a solid sheet of water.
They struggled on, urging their reluctant ponies up the rocky trail—up and up, while the trail grew ever steeper, the ground more thickly strewn with rocks and tree stumps, more impassable.
It seemed to the girls that they were like flies, clinging to the walls of a precipice.
A hideous crash of thunder, more terrific than any that had preceded it, broke shatteringly above them and seemed to cause the very ground beneath their feet to tremble.
Dorothy’s pony, scrambling over a huge boulder in the trail, slipped, stumbled, caught itself, and then, in fright, reared suddenly backward.
Caught unawares, Dorothy shot from her saddle like a bullet from a gun and rolled down the steep incline directly beneath the feet of Tavia’s prancing pony.
The whole thing was so sudden, so horrible, that Tavia could only gasp in sickening fear.
But it was the gallant beast she rode that saved the life of her chum, helpless beneath the death-dealing hoofs.
The pony reared, balanced with his forefeet in the air for a moment while Dorothy’s life hung in the balance. Then, with a terrific effort and almost human intelligence, he flung himself backward and to one side.
Even then his forefeet came to earth gently, tentatively, making sure that they touched only earth and stone. Then he stood quite still, shivering.