sat up instantly, and craned his neck to
see up the road.

"That horse is running away!" gasped the young farmer, and he swung
himself out upon the lowest branch of the leaning tree which overhung
the carttrack, the better to see along the highway.

CHAPTER XI. A GIRL RIDES INTO THE TALE

There was no bend in the highway for some distance, but the overhanging
trees masked the track completely, save for a few hundred yards. The
horse, whether driven or running at large, was plainly spurred by
fright.

Into the peacefulness of this place its hoof-beats were bringing the
element of peril.

Lying prostrate on the sloping trunk, Hiram could see much farther up
the road. The outstretched head and lathered breast of a tall bay horse
leaped into view, and like a picture in a kinetoscope, growing larger
and more vivid second by second, the maddened animal came down the road.

Hiram could see that the beast was not riderless, but it was a moment
or two--a long-drawn, anxious space of heart-beaten seconds--ere he
realized what manner of rider it was who clung so desperately to the
masterless creature.

"It's a girl--a little girl!" gasped Hiram.

She was only a speck of color, with white, drawn face, on the back of
the racing horse.

Every plunge of the oncoming animal shook the little figure as though
it must fall from the saddle. But Hiram could see that she hung with
phenomenal pluck to the broken bridle and to the single horn of her
side-saddle.

If the horse fell, or if she were shaken free, she would be flung to
instant death, or be fearfully bruised under the pounding hoofs of the
big horse.

The young farmer's appreciation of the peril was instant; unused as he
was to meeting such emergency, there was neither panic nor hesitancy in
his actions.

He writhed farther out upon the limb of the leaning oak until he was
direct above the road. The big bay naturally kept to the middle, for
there was no obstruction in its path.

To have dropped to the highway would have put Hiram to instant
disadvantage; for before he could have recovered himself after the drop
the horse would have been upon him.

Now, swinging with both legs wrapped around the tough limb, and his left
hand gripping a smaller branch, but with his back to the plunging brute,
the youth glanced under his right armpit to judge the distance and the
on-rush of the horse and its helpless rider.

He knew she saw him. Swift as was the steed's approa