Page:Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake.djvu/144

132 "Do you mean that time we were speeding up to get out of the storm?" his friend interrupted, "and we hit a stone, swerved over toward the animal, and nearly struck it?"

"Yes, that was the time," answered Mr. Stone. Grace could hardly refrain from crying out that she was on that same horse.

"I have always wondered who that girl was," Mr. Stone went on, "and some day I mean to go back to the scene of the accident, and see if I can find out. I have an idea she blames us for her horse running away. But it was an accident, pure and simple; wasn't it, Bob?"

"It certainly was. You see it was this way," he explained, and Grace felt sure they would ask her why she was so pale, for the blood had left her cheeks on hearing that the young men were really those she had suspected. "Harry, here, and myself," went on Mr. Kennedy, "had been out for a little run, to transact some business. We were on a country road, and a storm was coming up. We put on speed, because we did not want to get wet, and I had to be at a telegraph office at a certain time to complete a deal by wire.

"Just ahead of us was a girl on a white horse. The animal seemed frightened at the storm, and just as we came racing past our car struck a