although he never moved a muscle of his back and sat up stiff and
straight as a poker, he was sound asleep, and the reins in his grasp
slipped lower and lower and lower.

The horse was an old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but
it had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection
of many exciting adventures. Now, although it seemed half asleep,
dreaming, maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other American
tourists, or wondering if it were not time for it to have its noonday
nosebag, it was really keeping one eye open, nervously watching some
painters on the sidewalk. They were putting up a scaffold against a
building, in order that they might paint the cornice.

Presently the very thing happened that the old horse had been expecting.
A heavy board fell from the scaffold with a crash, knocking over a
ladder, which fell into the street in front of the frightened animal.
Now the old horse had been in several runaways. Once it had been hurt
by a falling ladder, and it had never recovered from its fear of one. As
this one fell just under its nose, all the old fright and pain that
caused its first runaway seemed to come back to its memory. In a frenzy
of terror it reared, plunged forward, then suddenly turned and dashed
down the street.

The plunge and sudden turn threw the sleeping coachman from the box to
the street. With the lines dragging at its heels, the frightened horse
sped on. The Little Colonel, clutching frantically at the seat in front
of her, screamed at the horse to stop. She had been used to driving ever
since she was big enough to grasp the reins, and she felt that if she
could only reach the dragging lines, she could control the horse. But
that was impossible. All she could do was to cling to the seat as the