s lively as
ever, and began to gallop up through the heather on the other side.
The horseman whom the children were following was still just in sight,
hugging his horse up the ascent; but first his horse's tail disappeared
over the hill, then only his shoulders were visible, then only his hat,
and presently he vanished from sight altogether. And Dick hustled his
pony up the hill to catch him, and Elsie hustled hers after him; but
the feeble gallop soon became a slow trot, and the trot became feebler
and feebler in spite of all the hustling. Before long both ponies were
sobbing heavily, and it was only with great difficulty that the
children kept them going fast enough to regain sight of their leader.
Presently the ponies came to a dead stop, and Dick looked about him for
the Corporal; but the Corporal was nowhere to be seen.

As a matter of fact the Corporal at that moment was just rising to his
feet, and wondering whether he was on his head or his heels. For old
Billy on finding himself in the bog had plunged madly about,
girth-deep, until he had pumped all the wind out of himself, when he
had waited quietly to recover his breath and floundered out on to the
sound ground, shaking such a shower of brown drops over the Corporal as
brought him to himself and made him stagger to his feet, rub his eyes,
and remember where he was. He soon made out in which direction Billy
was gone and presently caught sight of him, making his way to the water
to drink; but the horse was not going to let himself be caught at once,
and led the Corporal a long dance down by the water-side, where, of
course, he could see nothing of the children, though he kept hallooing
from time to time in the hope that they would hear him.

And meanwhile the children looked round and round, wondering where they
had come from and where they should go to. They had not the least idea
where they were, and they could see no one and hear no one; but they
laid their heads together and decided that they had better go on to the
top of the hill before them, from which, as Dick said, they would be
able to see further. So as soon as the ponies had recovered their wind
they went on upward, and presently to their delight they saw far ahead
of them the horseman whom they had followed, no longer moving but
stopped still. They hustled the ponies into a gallop once more, when
to their dismay the man began to move slowly on away from them. They
called out at the top of