It was, the girl fancied, an especially difficult place for a horseman to pick his way through.
Meanwhile the sound above grew louder, and presently an object apparently travelling like a thunderbolt came out of the shadow.

It was, notwithstanding the speed it made, gambolling playfully, with head tossed sideways and tail in the air, and when Miss Deringham fancied it must turn aside for a tangled brake, went smashing straight through it.
As it emerged with an exultant flourish of head and tail two other objects became visible behind it, and Seaforth pushed forward when the mounted figures came sweeping down the mountain side.

Here and there they swung wide round a fallen tree, but they rode straight through raspberry-canes and breast-high fern, and Alice Deringham wondered when she saw that one of them was a girl.

She had left her hat somewhere in the bush, her hair streamed about her, the skirt was blown aside; but she held on with set lips and two vivid spots of colour in her warm-tinted face, a length or two behind her companion.

He was riding hard, and there was a red smear across his face where a branch had smote him.
Miss Deringham turned to watch them, realizing that whatever the steer risked, its pursuers were in peril of life and limb.