touching the ground. That unlucky lash had knocked away the bonds of
a few months' servitude and sent the half-broken brutes instinctively
careering with arched backs and kicking heels into the field towards the
nearest cover.
Mary Rogers cast a hurried glance over her shoulder. Alas, they had
not calculated on the insidious levels of the terraced plain, and the
faithful Pedro had suddenly disappeared; the intervention of six inches
of rising wild oats had wiped him out of the prospect and their possible
salvation as completely as if he had been miles away. Nevertheless,
the girls were not frightened; perhaps they had not time. There was,
however, the briefest interval for the most dominant of feminine
emotions, and it was taken advantage of by Susy.
"It was all YOUR fault, dear!" she gasped, as the forewheels of the
buggy, dropping into a gopher rut, suddenly tilted up the back of the
vehicle and shot its fair occupants into the yielding palisades of dusty
grain. The shock detached the whiffletree from the splinter-bar, snapped
the light pole, and, turning the now thoroughly frightened animals again
from their course, sent them, goaded by the clattering fragments, flying
down the turnpike. Half a mile farther on they overtook the gleaming
white canvas hood of a slowly moving wagon drawn by two oxen, and,
swerving again, the nearer pony stepped upon a trailing trace and
ingloriously ended their career by rolling himself and his companion in
the dust at the very feet of the peacefully plodding team.
Equally harmless and inglorious was the catastrophe of Susy and her
friend. The strong, elastic stalks of the tall grain broke their fall
and enabled them to scramble to their feet, dusty, disheveled, but
unhurt, and even unstunned by the shock. Their first instinctive cries
over a damaged hat or ripped skirt were followed by the quick reaction
of childish laughter. They were alone; the very defection of Pedro
consoled them, in its absence of any witness to their disaster; even
their previous slight attitude to each other was forgotten. They groped
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