Part 10 (1/2)
”Give the reins to me!” she cried in Mary's ear, and seized the leathers just as they slipped from the hands of The Fox.
Ruth gripped them firmly and flung herself back into her own seat. Helen seized her with one hand and saved her from being thrown out of the pitching vehicle. And so, with her chum holding her into her seat, Ruth swung all her weight and force against the ponies' bits.
At first this seemed to have not the least effect upon the frightened animals. Ruth's slight weight exercised small pressure on those iron jaws. On and on they dashed, rocking the buckboard over the rough trail-and drawing each moment nearer to that perilous elbow in the canon!
Ruth realized the menacing danger of that turn in the trail from the moment the beasts first jumped. There was no parapet at the outer edge of the shelf-just the uneven, broken verge of the rock, with the awful drop to the roaring river below.
She remembered this in a flash, as the ponies tore on. There likewise pa.s.sed through her mind a vision of the chum beside her, crushed and mangled at the bottom of the canon-and again, Helen's broken body being swept away in the river! And The Fox-the girl who had so annoyed her-would likewise be killed unless she, Ruth Fielding, found some means of averting the catastrophe.
It was a fact that she did not think of her own danger. Mainly the runaway ponies held her attention. _She must stop them before they reached the fatal turn!_
Were the ponies giving way a little? Was it possible that her steady, desperate pulling on the curbs was having its effect? The pressure on their iron jaws must have been severe, and even a half-broken mustang pony is not entirely impervious to pain.
But the turn in the road was so near!
Snorting and plunging, the animals would-in another moment-reach the elbow. Either they must dash themselves headlong over the precipice, and the buckboard would follow, or, in swerving around the corner, the vehicle and its three pa.s.sengers would be hurled over the brink.
And then something-an inspiration it must have been-shot athwart Ruth's brain. The thought could not have been the result of previous knowledge on her part, for the girl of the Red Mill was no horsewoman. Jane Ann Hicks might have naturally thought to try the feat; but it came to Ruth in a flash and without apparent reason.
She dropped the left hand rein, stood up to seize the right rein with a shorter grip, and then flung herself back once more. The force she brought to bear on the nigh pony by this action was too much for him.
His head was pulled around, and in an instant he stumbled and came with a crash to the ground!
The pony's fall brought down his mate. The runaway was stopped just at the turn of the trail-and so suddenly that Mary c.o.x was all but flung headlong upon the struggling animals. Ruth and Helen _did_ fall out of the carriage-but fortunately upon the inner side of the trail.
Even then the maddened, struggling ponies might have cast themselves-and the three girls likewise-over the brink had not help been at hand. At the turn appeared Jib Pottoway, his pony in a lather, recalled by the sound of the runaways' drumming hoofs. The Indian flung himself from the saddle and gripped the bridles of the fallen horses just in season. Bob, driving the second pair of ponies with a firm hand, brought them to a halt directly behind the wreck, and Tom and Jane Ann ran to Jib's a.s.sistance.
”What's the matter with these ponies?” demanded the Indian, sharply.
”How'd they get in this shape? I thought you could drive a pair of hawses, boy?” he added, with scorn, looking at Tom.
”I got out to buckle a strap and they got away,” said Tom, rather sheepishly.
”Don't you scold him, Jib!” commanded Jane Ann, vigorously. ”He ain't to blame.”
”Who is?”
”That girl yonder,” snapped the ranchman's niece, pointing an accusing finger at Mary c.o.x. ”I saw her start 'em on the run while Tom was on the ground.”
”Never!” cried The Fox, almost in tears.
”You did,” repeated Jane Ann.
”Anyway, I didn't think they'd start and run so. They're dangerous. It wasn't right for the men to give us such wild ponies. I'll speak to Mr.
Hicks about it.”
”You needn't fret,” said Jane Ann, sternly. ”I'll tell Uncle Bill all right, and I bet you don't get a chance to play such a trick again as long as you're at Silver Ranch--”
Ruth, who had scrambled up with Helen, now placed a restraining hand on the arm of the angry Western girl; but Jane Ann sputtered right out:
”No! I won't keep still, Ruth Fielding. If it hadn't been for you that Mary c.o.x would now be at the bottom of these rocks. And she'll never thank you for saving her life, and for keeping her from killing you and Helen. She doesn't know how to spell grat.i.tude! Bah!”