It was Colonel Goff who wakened me, coming on a run.
"Quick, Jack!" he cried.
I was up in an instant. He stood beside me panting, almost faint. He
held a little slip in his hand. His face was white, his lips drawn, but
a battle coolness that went like cold steel into my own soul was in his
voice.
"Elsie, Jack! Stone's River bridge--you may save her yet! She is
drowning herself! Your horse, quick! I'll follow as best I can!"
Instantly I understood. I glanced down. Eloise's note was gone.
Elsie's hat lay on the grass instead.
Satan had been saddled for my ride to town and stood at the rack. In
two quick leaps I was by his side. The next minute I held the reins.
"If you ever rode in your life," I heard her father saying behind me,
"if you ever rode in your life, Jack! You may save her yet--straight
down the pike to the bridge!"
The horse seemed to know. He wheeled as the reins went over his head,
pivoted, as I'd seen him so often do, on two legs, for quickness, up
into the air, wheeling.
I held a good clutch on the pommel and as I rose his own great bound
jerked me like a bolt into the saddle. I saw the old butler,
bare-headed, running to open the gate, and Colonel Goff panting,
helpless, crossing the grass. But even Satan knew we'd lose if we
waited. It was only a four-foot rock wall; it was play for him to clear
it. He landed squarely and already in a full run.
The bridge was a mile away. It was made of iron and its sides were
protected by a railing. It was high where the pike reached it, spanning
a gorge cut through the hills.
A rock fence ran along the pike up to the bridge on each side. There
the bluff was sheer twenty feet straight down to the river. Satan ran
like a tube of quick-silver down the long white pathway of the pike. As
we flashed up the slope leading to it, I caught just a glimpse of a
white gown going over the bridge from the middle railing. I had to
throw all my weight on his left rein to send him over the rock fence at
the foot of the bridge and I knew when he felt my heel go into his flank
and my pull that shot his great game head into the fence, that he
thought I was crazy, was sending us both to death!
But he never faltered. It all depended on how he cleared that four-foot
fence and the twenty feet down to the river. I knew when he rose for
the leap that he expected firm ground on the other side. Would he balk,
falter and fail me when he saw?
I drove my heel into him. I felt him quiver just a moment beneath me.
Then I held my breath. A white figure floated midway of the river
before me. Up went his head, the water only flashed beneath him twenty
full feet below. I watched the play of his ears for his thoughts. If
they fluttered, wavered, showed fright, I knew he would balk and quit.
For an instant I saw them flutter back and forth, little tell-tales of
surprise, then down they came angrily, glued to his neck as one grits
one's teeth in a crisis, and he shot over the wall, balanced squarely,
holding himself superbly, down!
I clutched the pommel with both hands, locking my legs under his chest
as we struck the stinging, biting waters and went under. It seemed long
before we came up and I could see the white gown going down again. I
clutched it with one hand, drawing her head clear of the water against
my breast. I felt the horse moving easily beneath me. Would he see the
great bluffs and understand, or would he strike straight across for them
and drown us all, whirling round and round, trying to find a passway up
straight walls of rock? It all lay with him. It was correct instinct
now or death.