That open bench had looked short, but it was long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent at breakneck speed.

She would not be left behind.

She had awakened to a heedlessness of risk.

Something burned steadily within her.

A grim, hard anger of joy! When she saw, far down another open, gradual descent, that Dale had passed Bo and that Bo was riding the little mustang as never before, then Helen flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her in that wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was in the depths of Helen Rayner.
Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay of the land ahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying mile was something that would always blanch her cheeks and prick her skin in remembrance.
The open ground was only too short.