"He is after us!" exclaimed Cousin Molly Belle, and brought down her switch stingingly upon Snap's flanks.
Tightening her arm about me, she urged him from canter to gallop, from a gallop to a run. The trees swept by us like lightning; the wind tore the breath from our lungs, but I had no thought of fear. My cousin was a fearless rider, and the perfectly broken hunter under us flew as steadily and as straight as a blue martin. Against the back of my head Cousin Molly Belle's heart was pounding like an unbalanced trip-hammer. I wondered if it were possible that she was frightened, and twisted my face around to get a glimpse of hers. It was as white as a sheet, and her teeth were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid as she set me upon my feet that I began to tremble.
"Are you scared?" I faltered.
"Scared to death, child! Hush!"
She turned Snap's head in the direction from which we had come, and struck him smartly with her switch, in letting go of the bridle.
"Go home, sir! Go!"
He galloped off, stirrups and mane flying, and she drew a deep, agitated breath.
"If ever I get into such a scrape again!"
She bent low and listened; the scared look settled again upon her face. Through the stillness of the summer afternoon, we heard a sharp "Whoa!" faint but clear, when, as we judged, Snap neared our pursuer. The pause of a second ensued, and the hoofs, doubled in number and resonance, sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant ?>mn ion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose lowest boughs grew out horizontally and swept the earth.
"Don't move or speak!" she whispered fiercely and forced her way to the hole of the tree.