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I yanked and tugged at the bit. It was as a wisp of hay in his mouth. I might as well have been a monkey or a straw woman bobbing up and down on his back. Pound, pound, thump, thump, gaily sped on the Great Goer. There were dim shouts far behind me for a while, then no more. The roadside whipped by, two long streaks of green. We whizzed across the railroad track in front of the day express, accompanied by the engine’s frantic shriek of “down brakes.” If a shoe had caught in the track—ah! I lost my hat, my gold hatpin, every hairpin, and brown locks flew out two feet behind.
Away went my watch, then the all in two pockets, knife, purse, match-box—surely this trail was an improvement on Tom Thumb’s’ bread crumbs. One foot was out of the stirrup. I wrapped the reins around the pommel and clung on. There is a gopher hole—that means a broken leg for him, a clavicle and a few ribs for me. No; on we go. Ah, that stony brook ahead we soon must cross! Ye gods, so young and so fair! To perish thus, the toy of a raw-boned Great Goer!
Pound, pound, pound, the hard road rang with the thunder of hoofs. Could I endure it longer? Oh, there is the stream—surely he will stop. No! He is going to jump! It’s an awful distance! With a frantic effort I got my feet in the stirrups. He gathered himself together. I shut my eyes. Oh! We missed the bank and landed in the water—an awful mess. But the Great Goer scrambled out, with me still on top somehow, and started on. I pulled on the reins again with every muscle, trying to break his pace, or his neck anything that was his. Then there was a flapping noise below. We both heard it, we both knew what it was—the cinch worked loose, that meant the saddle loose.