At the same moment she heard the stroke of an axe over to the right of where the man was climbing.
She was riding past the team when Caroline humped her back and kicked viciously at Yellowjacket, who plunged straight down off the trail without waiting to see whether Caroline's aim was exact.

He slid into a juniper thicket and sat down looking very perplexed and very permanently placed there.

Lorraine stepped off on the uphill side of him, thanked her lucky stars she had not broken a leg, and tried to reassure Yellowjacket and to persuade him that no real harm had been done him.
Straightway she discovered that Yellowjacket had a mind of his own and that a pessimistic mind.

He refused to scramble back into the trail, preferring to sit where he was, or since Lorraine made that too uncomfortable, to stand where he had been sitting.

Yellowjacket, I may explain, owned a Roman nose, a pendulous lower lip and drooping eyelids.
Those who know horses will understand.
By the time Lorraine had bullied and cajoled him into making a somewhat circuitous route to the road, where he finally appeared some distance above the point of his descent, Brit was there, hitching the team to the wagon.
"What yuh doing up there ?" he wanted to know, looking up with some astonishment.
Lorraine furnished him with details and her opinion of both Caroline and Yellow jacket.