Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill.
Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm.
It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away.
Nor need I state the time made in the descent; it is written in the chronicles of Simpson’s Bar.
Enough that in another moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek.
As Dick expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her beyond the point of balking; and holding her well together for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the swiftly-flowing current.
A few moments of kicking, wading, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the opposite bank.
The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was tolerably level.
Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits.
Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new freshly-painted meeting-house at the crossing of the county road.