“Oh! isn’t this fun?” gasped Tavia, snuggling down in the sweet-smelling hay, while the span of big beasts swung forward on the road again.
“We’re too big to play at such games, I s’pose,” said Dorothy, but her friend interrupted with:
“Wait, for mercy’s sake, till we’re graduated. I’m afraid you’re going to be a regular poke before long, Doro. Ugh! wasn’t that a thank-you-ma’am? Just see their broad backs wag from side to side. Why! they’re as big as elephants!”
“Suppose they should run away?” murmured Dorothy.
But neither believed that was really possible. Only, it was deliciously exciting to think of careening down the hill behind the great steers, with no red-headed young man to snap his whip and cry:
“Hawther, Bright! Come up, Buck!”
On the brow of Longreach Hill the red-headed young man stopped the oxen. It was a steep pitch just before them—then a long slant to the shallows of the river—quite half a mile from the hilltop to the river’s edge.
Somebody shouted and beckoned the driver of the oxen away before he could help the girls out of the cart.
“Wait a moment, ladies,” he begged, with a smile, and hurried to assist in the moving of a heavy slab of rock.
It was then three youths came running out of the grove, waving their hats and sticks.