Then her own reply: “Nonsense, Mollie; you always were a ‘’fraid cat.’ I expect to ride a bucking broncho for the next year, so I certainly ought to be able to manage one of William’s quiet steeds.”
However, Polly Burton was becoming unable to manage one of “William’s quiet steeds.”
Although, by a firmer clutch on the reins, she had been able to keep herself in the saddle without its slipping off, yet her horse kept pounding ahead, paying not the least attention to her exhortations or her pulling.
A difficulty was that the horse was often used for driving and had a less sensitive mouth than those to which its rider had been accustomed.
However, the experience might be exhilarating if the saddle did not slip off entirely, as the road lay straight ahead. The horse would stop when he grew tired. There was only one trouble to be particularly feared and that was the loss of one’s breath from a pain in the side which the hard awkward riding might bring on.
The other horse had straightway been outdistanced. After one cry from Betty, Polly heard no other sound from her.
But now the pain was coming which was the trial of her life, and a sense of dizziness followed.
Fortunately a little ahead, on a path that ran alongside the road, a boy and a girl were walking. Polly believed she called to them, although they must have heard the noise of the runaway first.
For Billy Webster moved only a few steps and then stood waiting for the horse to come opposite him. When it did he made an upward leap. Seizing the bridle he continued holding on to it until the horse, after running a few yards more, peacefully stopped as if this had been his intention all along.
However, before this instant, looking down upon her nephew, it seemed to Mrs. Burton that he was very inadequate to the task ahead of him, although she never had seen any one so calmly determined.