CHAPTER TWO.
HOW OUR HEROES FALL OUT AND YET REMAIN FRIENDS.
Mountjoy House had a narrow escape that afternoon of losing three of its most promising pupils.
The boys themselves by no means realised the peril of their situation.
Indeed, after the first alarm, and finding that, by clinging tightly to the rail of the box-seat, they could support themselves on their feet on the floor of the swinging vehicle, Heathcote and Coote began almost to enjoy it, and were rather sorry one or two of the Templeton boys were not at hand to see how Mountjoy did things.
Richardson, however, with the reins in his hands, but utterly powerless to check the headlong career of the mare, or to do anything but guide her, took a more serious view of the situation, and heartily wished the drive was at an end.
It was a flat road all the way to Mountjoy--no steep hill to breathe the runaway, and no ploughed field to curb her ardour.

It was a narrow road, too, so narrow that, for two vehicles to pass one another, it was necessary for one of the two to draw up carefully at the very verge.
And as the verge in the present case meant the edge of rather a steep embankment, the prospect was not altogether a cheering one for an inexperienced boy, who, if he knew very little about driving, knew quite well that everything depended on his own nerve and coolness.
And Richardson not only had a head, but knew how to keep it.

With a rein tightly clutched in each hand, with his feet firmly pressed against the footboard, with a sharp eye out over the mare's ears, and a grim twitch on his determined mouth, he went over the chances in his own mind.
"If she goes on like this, we shall get to Mountjoy in half an hour.
What a pace! We're bound to smash up before we get there! Perhaps these fellows had better try and jump for it.

Hallo! lucky we didn't go over that stone! Wonder if I could pull her up if I got on her back?
She might kick up and smash the trap! Wonder if she will pull up, or go over the bank, or what?
Tom--Tom will have to run hard to catch us.
Whew! what a swing! I could have sworn we were over!" This last peril, and the involuntary cry of the two boys clinging on behind him, silenced even this mental soliloquy for a bit.

But the waggonette, after two or three desperate plunges, righted itself and continued its mad career at the heels of the mare.
"What would happen if we went over?
Jolly awkward to get pitched over on to my head or down among the mare's feet! She'd kick, I guess! Those fellows inside could jump and-- By Jove! there comes something on the road! We're in for it now! Either a smash, or over the bank, or-- Hallo! there's a gate open!" This last inward exclamation was caused by the sight of an open gate some distance ahead, through which a rough cart-track branched off from the road towards the sand-hills on the left.