She did not know at just what moment she became aware of trouble behind
her. It may have been Yellowjacket, turning his head sidewise and
abruptly quickening his pace that warned her. It may have been the
difference in the sound of the wagon and the impact of the horses'
hoofs on the rock trail. She turned and saw that something had gone
wrong. They were coming down upon her at a sharp trot, stepping high,
the wagon tongue thrust up between their heads as they tried to hold
back the load.
Brit yelled to her then to get out of the way, and his voice was harsh
and insistent. Lorraine looked at the steep bank to the right, knew
instinctively that Yellowjacket would never have time to climb it
before the team was upon them, and urged him to a lope. She glanced
back again, saw that the team was not running away, that they were
trying to hold the wagon, and that it was gaining momentum in spite of
them.
"Jump, dad!" she called and got no answer. Brit was sitting braced
with his feet far apart, holding and guiding the team. "He won't
jump--he wouldn't jump--any more than I would," she chattered to
herself, sick with fear for him, while she lashed her own horse to keep
out of their way.
The next she knew, the team was running, their eyeballs staring, their
front feet flung high as they lunged panic-stricken down the trail.
The load was rocking along behind them. Brit was still braced and
clinging to the reins.
Panic seized Yellowjacket. He, too, went lunging down that trail, his
head thrown from side to side that he might watch the thing that
menaced him, heedless of the fact that danger might lie ahead of him
also. Lorraine knew that he was running senselessly, that he might
leave the trail at any bend and go rolling into the canyon.
A sense of unreality seized her. It could not be deadly earnest, she
thought. It was so exactly like some movie thrill, planned carefully
in advance, rehearsed perhaps under the critical eye of the director,
and done now with the camera man turning calmly the little crank and
counting the number of film feet the scene would take. A little
farther and she would be out of the scene, and men stationed ahead
would ride up and stop her horse for her and tell her how well she had
"put it over."
She looked over her shoulder and saw them still coming. It was real.
It was terribly real, the way that team was fleeing down the grade.
She had never seen anything like that before, never seen horses so
frantically trying to run from the swaying load behind them. Always,
she had been accustomed to moderation in the pace and a slowed camera
to speed up the action on the screen. Yellowjacket, too--she had never
ridden at that terrific speed down hill. Twice she lost a stirrup and
grabbed the saddle horn to save herself from going over his head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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