“Keep quiet!” he retorted.
She raised her arm and struck the animal with all the force at her command, then with both hands jerked the reins and tried to ride down her obstructor. The horse reared and for a brief second lifted the man off his feet; but he held on, and horse and man came to the ground together.
“If you try to do a trick like that again,” he cried, “I’ll throw both you and the horse! Drop that whip!”
Instead of dropping it she raised it again, leaning forward this time to strike the man; but he sprang towards her, holding the rein in his right hand, and with his left caught the whip as it descended and wrenched it rudely from her grasp. For a moment she thought he was about to strike her, and her arm rose waveringly to protect her face.
“Will you keep still?” he demanded.
“If you want money,” she said in the quiet, semi-contemptuous tone with which she would have addressed a beggar, “you might have the sense to know that I carry none with me in the forest.”
“I want money,” he replied, “and I have the sense to know you carry none with you.”
“Then how do you expect to obtain it by this violence?”
“That I shall have the pleasure of explaining to you a little further on.”
She folded her empty hands on her knee, now that he was possessed of both whip and rein.