CHAPTER XXVIA GENTLEMAN
Dorothy looked bewildered. Swiftly and with a return of the emotion she had felt at that time of her chum’s great peril, lending eloquence to her words, Tavia told Dorothy what had happened.
“That blessed pony knew you were lying there, helpless under his feet,” she said, “and, like the gentleman and thoroughbred he is, he wasn’t going to hurt a lady if he could help it. You should have seen him, Doro, pawing the air to make sure he wasn’t touching you.
“And then when I pulled you out from under him he stood so still you would have thought he was holding his breath for fear he would move. I never saw an animal act like that. He was human, Doro!”
Dorothy took an uncertain step toward the little pony, hands outstretched, and Tavia regarded her curiously.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
There was a curious catch in her voice as Dorothy answered softly:
“I am going to thank—a gentleman.”
She put an arm about the pony’s neck and with her other hand gently stroked his soft muzzle. And as though he understood what she was trying to say to him, the little horse nuzzled against her shoulder and whinnied gently.
Suddenly Tavia thought of the other pony, the one that had so nearly precipitated Dorothy to her death.
She found him standing on the ledge above them, tossing his head nervously now and then at some particularly harsh rumble of thunder or flash of lightning, but making no attempt to stray away.
“Lucky for us they gave us a couple of gentle, domesticated ponies,” remarked Tavia, as she climbed the trail to bring the pony back to the spot where Dorothy was standing, her arm still about the neck of the little horse. “One with a wilder strain in him would have shown us his heels long since and one of us would have been obliged to walk back.”
Returning with the captured pony slipping and sliding down the trail behind her, Tavia looked anxiously at her chum.
“Do you think you are strong enough to sit in a saddle, Doro? Because if you’re not——”
“Oh, I am,” protested Dorothy quickly. “I feel strong enough to do anything except stayin this awful place, Tavia. Listen to that thunder!”
“Quite a pretty storm!” Tavia admitted. “Now, Doro dear, if you will let me help you into the saddle, perhaps we had better start.”
“We are going back though,” asserted Dorothy almost defiantly, and was relieved when Tavia agreed with her.
It was obvious that with Dorothy in her present condition, they could gain nothing by going on. The only sensible thing, under the circumstances, was to return to the safety and comfort of the ranch. Mrs. Hank Ledger’s kitchen seemed particularly alluring to them just then!
Tavia helped Dorothy into the saddle—almost lifted her, in fact—and was more than ever alarmed to see how much the accident had weakened her chum.
Dorothy was game—game as they come—she told herself loyally. But nothing could hide the trembling hands and the fact that it required all Dorothy’s will power, even with Tavia’s help, to climb into the saddle.
It had been tacitly decided that Dorothy should ride Hero—for so she had dubbed the little horse in appreciation of what he had done—on the return journey.
But as she turned the pony’s head and lookedback over the sharply-sloping trail up which they had clambered, Dorothy’s heart misgave her.
The descent would be infinitely more difficult than the ascent had been. The ponies, though sure-footed and used to the rough mountain trails, would be in constant danger of slipping on the wet rocks and moss.
Guessing her thoughts, Tavia urged her own pony close to her chum and stood for a moment beside her, staring down the steep descent.
“Looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?” she said soberly, after a moment. “But I guess we will have to risk it, Doro. We can’t very well stay where we are.”
“No, we can’t stay where we are,” repeated Dorothy automatically, adding, as she pressed her hand, palm out, against her forehead: “But I am so dizzy, Tavia. When I look down it seems as if the earth rose up to meet me.”
“Then don’t look down!” cried Tavia sharply, noting with an access of alarm that Dorothy reeled in the saddle as she spoke. “Look up as much as you can, Doro, and hold on tight to the pony’s mane if you feel yourself slipping. Oh, I wish Garry were here!”
Perhaps she had revealed more of her alarm than she had meant to in that exclamation.
At any rate, Dorothy looked at her queerly,and, with a huge effort of will, jerked herself upright in the saddle.
“I’m all right, Tavia,” she said courageously. “I’ll keep hold of the pony’s mane as you said. But, Tavia—you go first!”
Her heart full of misgivings, Tavia urged her pony forward and began the steep and slippery descent to the road far below.
It seemed for a little while that the elements, having given them a taste of what they could really do if put to it, had decided to take mercy on them.
There was a lull in the storm. The rain continued to fall, but more gently, and the thunder seemed to have spent its fury, retiring into the distance with muttered and ever decreasing rumblings.
But just as the girls, making slow progress of it and stopping every now and then to rest and give Dorothy a chance to rally her forces, had begun to hope that the storm was almost over, it burst upon them again, more furiously than ever.
Came the rain again and then the wind, bending trees backward before its onslaught, driving the rain relentlessly into their faces, forcing them to halt every few paces to pass a hand across their blinded eyes and peer anxiously along the trail.
“We shall be lost if we don’t look out,” Dorothy panted, during one of these pauses.
“Look out!” repeated Tavia, with a brief laugh. “Fine chance we have to look out when we can’t see more than a few feet before our faces. How are you feeling, Doro—any stronger?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Dorothy responded. But in spite of the brave assertion, Tavia knew that she was not all right, that she was fighting every inch of the way to keep herself erect in the saddle. Despite her effort to hide it, Tavia saw that she was trembling all over.
“Cold?” she asked, and again Dorothy shook her head, this time almost impatiently.
“Let’s go on,” she cried. “We must be very near the road by this time.”
But Tavia knew that they were not near the road. In fact, it was not very long before Tavia made a discovery that startled her. In the sudden fright that caught at her throat she must have made some sort of an ejaculation, for Dorothy, reining up beside her, called above the noise of the storm:
“Did you say anything, Tavia?”
“Nothing, except that we are not on the trail,” retorted Tavia calmly. “Dorothy, I am very much afraid that we are lost!”