A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE
There was no bend in the highway for some distance, but the overhanging trees masked the track completely, save for a few hundred yards. The horse, whether driven or running at large, was plainly spurred by fright.
Into the peacefulness of this place its hoof-beats were bringing the element of peril.
Lying prostrate on the sloping trunk, Hiram could see much farther up the road. The outstretched head and lathered breast of a tall bay horse leaped into view, and like a picture in a kinetoscope, growing larger and more vivid second by second, the maddened animal came down the road.
Hiram could see that the beast was not riderless, but it was a moment or two--a long-drawn, anxious space of heart-beaten seconds--ere he realized what manner of rider it was who clung so desperately to the masterless creature.
"It's a girl--a little girl!" gasped Hiram.
She was only a speck of color, with white, drawn face, on the back of the racing horse.
Every plunge of the oncoming animal shook the little figure as though it must fall from the saddle. But Hiram could see that she hung with phenomenal pluck to the broken bridle and to the single horn of her side- saddle.
If the horse fell, or if she were shaken free, she would be flung to instant death, or be fearfully bruised under the pounding hoofs of the big horse.
The young farmer's appreciation of the peril was instant; unused as he was to meeting such emergency, there was neither panic nor hesitancy in his actions.
He writhed farther out upon the limb of the leaning oak until he was direct above the road. The big bay naturally kept to the middle, for there was no obstruction in its path.
To have dropped to the highway would have put Hiram to instantdisadvantage; for before he could have recovered himself after the drop the horse would have been upon him.
Now, swinging with both legs wrapped around the tough limb, and his left hand gripping a smaller branch, but with his back to the plunging brute, the youth glanced under his right armpit to judge the distance and the on- rush of the horse and its helpless rider.
He knew she saw him. Swift as was the steed's approach, Hiram had seen the change come into the expression of the girl's face.
"Clear your foot of the stirrup!" he shouted, hoping the girl would understand.
With a confusing thunder of hoofbeats the bay came on--was beneath him--had passed!
Hiram's right arm shot out, curved slightly, and as his fingers gripped her sleeve, the girl let go. She was whisked out of the saddle and the horse swept on without her.
The strain of the girl's slight weight upon his arm lasted but a moment, for Hiram let go with his feet, swung down, and dropped.
They alighted in the roadway with so slight a jar that he scarcely staggered, but set the girl down gently, and for the passing of a breath her body swayed against him, seeking support.
Then she sprang a little away, and they stood looking at each other-- Hiram panting and flushed, the girl with wide-open eyes out of which the terror had not yet faded, and cheeks still colorless.
So they stood, for fully half a minute, speechless, while the thunder of the bay's hoofs passed further and further away and finally was lost in the distance.
And it wasn't excitement that kept the boy dumb; for that was all over, and he had been as cool as need be through the incident. But it was unbounded amazement that made him stare so at the slight girl confronting him.
He had seen her brilliant, dark little face before. Only once--but that one occasion had served to photograph her features on his memory.
For the second time he had been of service to her; but he knew instantly--and the fact did not puzzle him--that she did not recognize him.
It had been so dark in the unlighted side street back in Crawberry the evening of their first meeting that Hiram believed (and was glad) that neither she nor her father would recognize him as the boy who had kept their carriage from going into the open ditch.
And he had played rescuer again--and in a much more heroic manner. This was the daughter of the man whom he had thought to be a prosperous farmer, and whose card Hiram had lost.
He had hoped the gentleman might have a job for him; but now Hiram was not looking for a job. He had given himself heartily to the project of making the old Atterson farm pay; nor was he the sort of fellow to show fickleness in such a project.
Before either Hiram or the girl broke the silence--before that silence could become awkward, indeed--there started into hearing the ring of rapid hoofbeats again. But it was not the runaway returning.
The mate of the latter appeared, and he came jogging along the road, very much in hand, the rider seemingly quite unflurried.
This was a big, ungainly, beak-nosed boy, whose sleeves were much too short, and trousers-legs likewise, to hide Nature's abundant gift to him in the matter of bone and knuckle. He was freckled and wore a grin that was not even sheepish.
Somehow, this stolidity and inappreciation of the peril the girl had so recently escaped, made Hiram feel sudden indignation.
But the girl herself took the lout to task--before Hiram could say a word.
"I told you that horse could not bear the whip, Peter!" she exclaimed, with wrathful gaze. "How dared you strike him?""Aw--I only touched him up a bit," drawled the youth. "You said you could ride anything, didn't you?" and his grin grew wider. "But I see ye had to get off."Here Hiram could stand it no longer, and he blurted out:
"She might have been killed!I believe that horse is running yet---" "Well,whydidn'tyoustopit?"demandedtheotheryouth,"impudently. You had a chance."
"He saved me," cried the girl, looking at Hiram now with shining eyes.
"I don't know how to thank him."
