Hoofbeats of Danger Read Online Free Page A

it’ll take him an hour or so to mend that wheel rim.”
    He glared at Pa, as if he thought the repair could be done faster. Annie threw a nervous glance at her father, remembering her parents’ conversation earlier. Was Pa’s job at stake?
    Suddenly from the barn came frantic whinnying, and then a high, wild neigh. Annie froze, dropping the stew ladle. For a moment there was utter silence. Then a splintering crash split the night.
    Jeremiah, Mr. Dawson, and Nate Slocum jumped to their feet. They ran out the station door, leaving it open behind them. Billy and the stagecoach guard hurried out after them, and the others crowded anxiously in the doorway. Seized with dread, Annie squirmed forward through the crowd. Unearthly as that animal cry had been, there was something familiar in it.…
    Hoping against hope, Annie peered out into the wet darkness. Her heart lurched as she saw a black-and-white blur in the barn doorway. The world seemed to stop for an instant. It was Magpie, bucking grotesquely, hooves flailing, eyes rolling.
    Annie clung to the rough doorpost, feeling sick and hollow. What was wrong with Magpie? It almost looked as if …
    Had Magpie gone mad?

C HAPTER 4
    A N E XTRA C HANCE

    Fiercely Annie shoved past the coach passengers in the doorway. Mrs. Dawson reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Let the men handle this,” she muttered.
    The scene in the yard was blurred by rain, but Annie could see Jeremiah trying to get a rope around Magpie’s neck. As the men hemmed her in, Magpie wrenched away, pitching her body sideways. Annie spotted Billy by the horse’s head, trying desperately to grab her halter.
    Behind them, the coach guard dashed out of the barn, whip in hand. When Annie saw the whip, she lunged forward, a cry rising in her throat. Mrs. Dawson yanked her back, more firmly this time.
    She heard someone in the crowd behind her say, “Give it a good lashing—that’d make the beast mind its manners.” Annie spun around. The passenger that Billy had called Goldilocks was grinning to the bespectacled man beside him. He looked startled at the glare Annie gave him, and nervously twirled his mustache.
    When she turned back, she saw a rope looped crazily around Magpie’s neck, with Jeremiah tugging on its end. Annie bit her lip, watching the rope tauten and strain. The men began to close in on the horse again. Magpie made strange bleating whinnies. Annie shut her eyes tight.
    â€œShould we wrestle her into the barn?” she heard Jeremiah’s voice shout, almost lost in the drumming rain.
    â€œNo—the way she’s kicking, she might crash through a wall,” her father yelled back. “She could get hurt, and for sure she’d get the other horses all stirred up. Better put her out in the corral.”
    As she opened her eyes again, Annie saw the five men shoving and leaning against the frantic horse, forcing her into the corral next to the barn. Magpie, resisting, dug in with her hooves, splattering their faces with mud. But with all hands working, she was pushed inside the fence at last. Jeremiah dashed out after the other men, slamming the gate shut. The men headed back toward the house.
    Relieved that the struggle was over, the onlookers moved with a murmur of conversation back to the table and hearth. Only Annie was left, clinging fearfully to the doorpost. Alone, she watched Magpie snort and make a few confused runs at the split-rail fence, as if aiming to jump it. Then she stopped, stiff-legged, wheezing, head hanging low. Annie saw a dreadful spasm twist the mare’s body. The white patch on her withers shuddered and twitched.
    A few yards away, Annie could hear the Overland employees, huddling under the wide, overhanging eaves of the station house. She strained to catch their conversation through the dull rainfall. “She was fine when I changed her shoe this noontime,” Mr. Dawson was protesting. “Gentle