"I DON'T WANT TO STRIKE YOU," SHE SAID,
"BUT YOU KNOW PRISONERS MUST OBEY."
Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Page 54
The horse pricked up his ears in response. Dorothy turned into a field where she thought the plum-shaped fruit would be found.
Dismounting, she threw the reins over Cricket's head and allowed him to nibble at the sweet grass. Yes, there were the mandrakes with their finger-shaped leaves. And they were turning yellow. Dorothy gathered a few, then stood up to look about her.
"The bandit!" she gasped in a whisper.
He had his hand on Cricket's rein!
"Drop that!" she shouted. "You need not think I am afraid of you now!"
"What?" asked the boy, dropping his disguise like a thing held by one single fastening and moving as if to spring up into the saddle.
Dorothy fairly jumped over the tall grasses, and was beside the horse before the boy could mount. She grasped the bridle, and, at the same time, more firmly grasped her riding crop.
"Now I have you," she declared, gazing in wonderment at the very good-looking boy who tried in vain to escape from the stirrup in which his boot had stuck. Seeing her opportunity, Dorothy dropped the bridle and crop, and, with both hands, grasped the boy very much in the same manner as he had seized her the day before.