fore. She
had been run away with once, but that was like a cradle to this tornado
of motion. She had been frightened before, but never like this. The
blood pounded in her head and eyes until it seemed it would burst forth,
and now and again the surging of it through her ears gave the sensation
of drowning, yet on and on she went. It was horrible to have no bridle,
and nothing to say about where she should go, no chance to control her
horse. It was like being on an express train with the engineer dead in
his cab and no way to get to the brakes. They must stop some time and
what then? Death seemed inevitable, and yet as the mad rush continued
she almost wished it might come and end the horror of this ride.

It seemed hours before she began to realize that the horse was no longer
going at quite such a breakneck speed, or else she was growing
accustomed to the motion and getting her breath, she could not quite be
sure which. But little by little she perceived that the mad flying had
settled into a long lope. The pony evidently had no intention of
stopping and it was plain that he had some distinct place in mind to
which he was going as straight and determinedly as any human being ever
laid out a course and forged ahead in it. There was that about his whole
beastly contour that showed it was perfectly useless to try to deter him
from it or to turn him aside.

When her breath came less painfully, Hazel made a fitful little attempt
to drop a quiet word of reason into his ear.

"Nice pony, nice, good pony----!" she soothed, but the wind caught her
voice and flung it aside as it had flung her cap a few moments before,
and the pony only laid his ears back and fled stolidly on.

She gathered her forces again.

"Nice pony! Whoa, sir!" she cried, a little louder than the last time
and trying to make her voice sound firm and commanding.

But the pony had no intention of "whoa-ing," and though she repeated the
command many times, her voice growing each time more firm and normal, he
only showed the whites of his eyes at her and continued doggedly on his
way.

She saw it was useless; and the tears, usually with her under fine
control, came streaming down her white cheeks.

"Pony, good horse, _dear_ pony, won't you stop!" she cried and her words
ended with a sob. But still the pony kept on.

The desert fled about her yet seemed to grow no shorter ahead, and the
dark line of cloud mystery, with the towering mountains beyond, wer