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 see who's what! Whoa! Whoa! Steady! Come into that channel, you old idiot! Come _on_!" The Foam Flake was pretty nearly ready to come by this time. And Kendrick's not too gentle coaxing helped. The buggy settled into the ruts with a series of bumps. The horse's gallop became a trot, then a walk; then he stopped and stood still. The captain subsided on the seat beside his passenger. He relaxed his tension upon the reins and the situation. "Whew!" he exclaimed. "That was sweet while it lasted. All right, are you?" She answered, still rather breathlessly, "Yes, I am all right," she declared. "But you? Aren't you hurt?" "Me? Not a bit." "You're sure? I was so afraid. Your--your legs, you know." "My legs are all serene." They weren't, by any means, and were at that moment proclaiming the fact, but he did not mean she should know. "They're first-rate.... Well, I'm much obliged." "Obliged for what?" "For that rein. But you shouldn't have climbed out that way. You might have broken your neck. 'Twas an awful risk." "You were going to take the same risk. And _I_ am not in the doctor's care." "Well, you shouldn't have done it, just the same. And it was a spunky thing to do.... But what a numbskull I was not to be on the lookout for that squall. Humph!" with a grin, "I believe I told you even a typhoon couldn't move this horse. I was wrong, wasn't I?" The squall had passed on, but a steady gale was behind it. And there was a marked hint of dampness in the air. Sears sniffed. "And I'm afraid, too," he said, "that I was wrong about that rain comin' to-morrow. I think it's comin' this evenin' and pretty soon, at that."