The Desert

When her breath came less painfully, Hazel made a fitful little attempt to drop a quiet word of reason into his ear.

"Nice pony, nice, good pony----!" she soothed, but the wind caught her voice and flung it aside as it had flung her cap a few moments before, and the pony only laid his ears back and fled stolidly on.

She gathered her forces again.

"Nice pony! Whoa, sir!" she cried, a little louder than the last time and trying to make her voice sound firm and commanding.

But the pony had no intention of "whoa-ing," and though she repeated the command many times, her voice growing each time more firm and normal, he only showed the whites of his eyes at her and continued doggedly on his way.

She saw it was useless; and the tears, usually with her under fine control, came streaming down her white cheeks.

"Pony, good horse, dear pony, won't you stop!" she cried and her words ended with a sob. But still the pony kept on.

The desert fled about her yet seemed to grow no shorter ahead, and the dark line of cloud mystery, with the towering mountains beyond, were no nearer than when she first started. It seemed much like riding on a rocking-horse, one never got anywhere, only no rocking-horse flew at such a speed.

Yet she realized now that the pace was much modified from what it had been at first, and the pony's motion was not hard. If she had not been so stiff and sore in every joint and muscle with the terrible tension she had kept up the riding would not have been at all bad. But she was conscious of most terrible weariness, a longing to drop down on the sand of the desert and rest, not caring whether she ever went on again or not. She had never felt such terrible weariness in her life.