Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/92

82 ing out of his seat to glimpse the strap. "Here, Mary! hold these reins, please."

He put the reins into the hands of The Fox and hopped out. She laughed and slapped them across the ponies' backs and the beasts reared and snorted.

"Have a care what you're doing, Mary Cox!" shrieked Helen.

"Whoa!" cried her brother, and leaped to seize the nearest pony by the bit. But the half wild animals jerked away from him, dashing across the narrow trail.

"Pull up! pull up!" shouted Tom.

"Don't let them run!" cried Jane Ann Hicks, standing up in the carriage behind.

But in that single moment of recklessness the ponies became unmanageable—at least, unmanageable for The Fox. She pulled the left rein to bring them back into the trail, and off the creatures dashed, at headlong speed, along the narrow way. On the right was the unscalable wall of rock; on the left was the awful drop to the roaring river!