The bull was in much too evil a frame of mind to care for a girl on a small black pony. He bellowed defiance, keeping close to the fence, and scattering the dust as he came. The stock-whip spoke again, the lash falling across his face; but it was not the heavy thong to which he was accustomed, and, while it made him angrier, it did not turn him in the least. He put his head down and charged, making a savage thrust with his cruel little horns at the pony, missing Jo’s leg by a hair’s breadth. Pilot danced aside; and then they were once more in the rear, and the broad, brown back, with the switching, angry tail, seemed to fill the road in front of them.
“Well, you are an old pig!” said Jo, in heartfelt accents, to the bull. “Come on. Pilot!” They galloped in pursuit again.
An hour later, they were still pursuing. Four times they had managed to head the bull, and each time he had beaten them, becoming, with each victory, more and more unmanageable. Only a man on a good horse could have turned him now, for all his wicked fury was aroused, and from being merely bad-tempered he was actively vicious. Twice, Pilot’s quickness alone had saved Jo from disaster. Now, she was very tired, and her arm felt almost useless, so cruelly did it ache from trying to use the stock-whip. Tears were not usual with the twins; but Jo was not far off them.
“We’ll never get him back, Pilot!” she said miserably.
They rounded a bend in the road, and ahead a little cottage came into view. At sight of it Jo caught her breath. Out in the road before it, two little blue figures were playing happily in the dusty grass.
No one else was in sight: before her loomed only the bull, bearing steadily down on the children. Jo forgot her weariness; forgot everything but those little, helpless figures. Next moment Pilot was going at racing pace—up the road, past the galloping bull, on and on, his rider shouting as she bent forward on his neck. “Run! Get inside the fence!”
They were very little children; too young to understand or to be afraid. They looked up at the flying pony with wide, interested eyes, never thinking of moving; unheeding Jo’s wild cries to run within the shelter of the garden fence so near to them. The sound of the racing hoofs and the wild cries brought a man to the cottage door—and in a moment he also was shouting, running wildly; knowing himself too far off to be of any use.