Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/264

 air. Surely nothing more was to be feared from that source. No matter how well mounted a party of Indians might be, none could overhaul the peerless Dick, whose graceful legs were again doubling under him with marvelous rapidity and carrying him and his burden as an eagle bears its eaglet on its broad back.

“Now, if I should have a flat sail on my right and left like a kite,” mused Alden, giving rein to his whimsical fancy, “this speed would lift us clear and we should skim through the air like a swallow. We should have to come down now and then, when the hoofs would give us another flip upward and away we should go. I’ll make the suggestion when I get the chance.”

Suddenly he caught sight of a buck coursing in front. Where he came from he could not guess. Dick must have headed for him without either being aware of the fact, until the horse was almost upon the creature.

The latter kept up his wild flight for several hundred yards when he was terrified to find that man and horse were gaining upon him. Then the buck showed a gleam of sense by bolting to the right. He made astonishing bounds and