the buggy out of the ruts and setting it to rocking like a
dory amid breakers. He jumped again, and this brought his ancient
broadside into contact with the bushes by the edge of the road. They
were ragged, and prickly, and in violent commotion. So he jumped the
other way.

Sears, yelling Whoas and compliments, stood erect upon his newly-mended
legs and leaned his weight backward upon the reins. If the skipper of a
Hudson River canal boat had suddenly found his craft deserting the
waterway and starting to climb Bear Mountain, he might have experienced
something of Sears' feelings at that moment. Canal boats should not
climb; it isn't done; and horses of the Foam Flake age, build and
reputation should not run away.

"Whoa! Whoa! What in thunder--?" roared the captain. "Port! Port, you
lubber!"

He jerked violently on the left rein. That rein was, like the horse and
the buggy, of more than middle age. Leather of that age must be
persuaded, not jerked. The rein broke just beyond Sears' hand, flew over
the dashboard and dragged in the road. The driver's weight came solidly
upon the right hand rein. The Foam Flake dashed across the highway
again, head-first into the woods this time.

Then followed a few long--very long minutes of scratching and rocking
and pounding. Sears heard himself shouting something about the Broken
rein he must get that rein.

"It's all right! It's all right, Elizabeth!" he shouted. "I'm goin' to
lean out over his back, if I can and--O--oh!"

The last was a groan, involuntarily wrung from him by the pain in his
knees. He had put an unaccustomed strain upon them and they were
remonstrating. He shut his teeth, swallowed another groan, and leaned
out over the dash, his hand clutching for the harness of the rocketing,
bumping Foam Flake.

Then he realized that some one else was leaning over that dashboard, was
in fact almost out of the buggy and swinging by the harness and the
shaft.

"Elizabeth!" he shouted, in wild alarm. "Elizabeth, what are you doin'?
Stop!"

But she was back, panting a little, but safe.

"I have the rein," she panted. "Give me the other, Cap'n Kendrick. I can
handle him, I know. Give me the rein. Sit down! Oh, please! You will
hurt yourself again!"

But he was in no mood to sit down. He snatched the end of the broken
rein from her hand, taking it and the command again simultaneously.

"Get back, back on the seat," he ordered. "Now then," addressing the
horse, "we'll s