Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/160

148 on a short, steep curving beach, a quarter mile in length, between Gull Rock and a point where steep cliffs ran down into the sea.

"You certainly can ride!" cried Kenneth.

"That isn't riding," she replied scornfully.

"No: but I can tell by the way you sit, the way you go at it."

"Now it doesn't look as though you could possibly go another inch, does it?" she cried animatedly, dismissing Kenneth's compliment. "Come and I'll show you."

She touched heel to the palomino. The beach was shelving at this point and the sand soft. Her horse's hoofs flung the loose sand back by handfuls, stinging Kenneth's eyes. He had either to draw rein and fall back out of range, or race alongside in heavy laborious footing. He chose to do the former, in which his judgment coincided with that of the two dogs, who rolled their eyes comically up at him and wagged their tails. They caught up with the palomino dancing restlessly.

"Why didn't you come along?" she demanded.

"Pretty heavy going. That soft steep sand is mighty hard on horses."

"Good heavens! You aren't going to be one of these careful ones, are you?" she cried impatiently.

Kenneth's face flushed darkly, but he made no direct reply.

"I don't see how we go any farther," he commented.

"Follow me," she commanded.

She put her horse directly at the swirl of waters. At this point the waves broke not over twenty feet out from the cliffs, and the wash, rushing forward in a white mass, was rebuffed in whirlpools. The palomino snorted loudly as he was put at this, but advanced gingerly, nevertheless, feeling his way with little steps. Almost immediately the water rose above the line of his belly. The girl kicked her feet from the stirrups and raised them out of the way.

Kenneth had perforce to follow, though neither he nor Pronto favoured the move. Indeed, it required strong application of the big-rowelled blunt spurs to start him at all, although he had another horse to follow. The two dogs ran agonizedly up and down a short arc of the beach by way of formal protest, then sadly plunged in and swam in a business-like fashion, buffeted