swerve of the wagon, and Jack Ogden was in it, and in a second more the
loosely flying reins were in his hands.

The strong arms of his father, were they twice as strong, could not at
once have pulled in those horses, and one man on the sidewalk seemed to
be entirely correct when he said, "He's a plucky little fellow, but he
can't do a thing, now he's there."

[Illustration: _The Runaway_.]

His sister was trembling all over, but she was repeating: "He did it
splendidly! He can do anything!"

Jack, in the wagon, was thinking only: "I know 'em. They're old
Hammond's team. They'll try to go home to the mill. They'll smash
everything, if I don't look out!"

It is something, even to a greatly frightened horse, to feel a hand on
the rein. The team intended to turn out of Main Street, at the corner,
and they made the turn, but they did not crash the wagon to pieces
against the corner post, because of the desperate guiding that was done
by Jack. The wagon swung around without upsetting. It tilted
fearfully, and the nigh wheel was in the air for a moment, until Jack's
weight helped bring it down again. There was a short, sharp scream
across the street, when the wagon swung and the wheel went up.

Down the slope toward the bridge thundered the galloping team, and the
blacksmith ran out of his shop to see it pass.

"Turn them into the creek, Jack!" he shouted, but there was no time for
any answer.

"They'd smash through the bridge," thought Jack. "I know what I'm
about."

There were wheel-marks down from the street, at the left of the bridge,
where many a team had descended to drink the water of the Cocahutchie,
but it required all Jack's strength on one rein to make his runaways
take that direction. They had thought of going toward the mill, but
they knew the watering-place.

Not many rods below the bridge stood a clump of half a dozen gigantic
trees, remnants of the old forest which had been replaced by the
streets of Crofield and the farms around it. Jack's pull on the left
rein was obeyed only too well, and it looked, for some seconds, as if
the plunging beasts were about to wind up their maddened dash by a
wreck among those gnarled trunks and projecting roots. Jack drew his
breath hard, and there was almost a chill at his young heart, but he
held hard and said nothing.

Forward--one plunge more--hard on the right rein--

"That was close!" he said. "If we didn't go right between the big
maple and