What a chance!
She shoved that canoe over the smooth grass, straight for the water. The paddles were inside, and Dorothy knew that once she was upon the water she could escape.
Shouts from the terrace almost stunned her. She pushed the canoe into the stream, slid into the frail bark, and started off, just as the stablemen came back over the grounds with the fractious horse!
CHAPTER XXIV[ToC]
A LONELY RIDE
No sooner had Dorothy paddled around the bend in the stream that led into the river, than she heard the alarm bell of the sanitarium ring.
"That's the alarm for me!" she told herself, "but they can never see me in this narrow pass. How fortunate that no one saw me take the boat. And I suppose they think I escaped from the front gate during the excitement about the horse."
Dorothy was right in her surmise. So reasonable did it seem that she had passed out by the front gate, when the guards came to the rescue of those in danger from the frightened horse, that no one thought of looking at the rear of the institution.