His advice was scarcely necessary.  The thunder of horse-hoofs on the turf was not to be mistaken.  Through the darkness the stampeding animals swept down upon the party.

“Git, you fellers!” yelled another rider.  “And keep a-goin’!  Jest split the wind for the station!”

The horsemen swept past the jouncing motor-cars.  Some of the women in the cars screamed.  Helen cried: 

“What did I tell you!”

“Don’t—­dare—­tell us anything more!” jerked out Jennie.

Through the murk the girls saw the heads and flaunted manes of the coming horses.  Just what harm they might do to the motor-cars, which could not be driven rapidly on this rough trail, Ruth and her two chums did not know.  But the threat of the wild ponies’ approach was not to be ignored.

CHAPTER XVI

NEWS AND A THREAT

A stampede of mad cattle is like the charge of a blind and insane monster.  River, nor ravine, nor any other obstruction can halt the mad rush of the horned beasts.  They pile right into it, and only if it is too steep or too high do they split and go around.

A stampede of horses is different in that the equine brain appreciates danger more clearly than that of the sullen steer.  Behind a cattle stampede is often left an aftermath of dead and crippled beasts.  But horses are more canny.  A wild horse seldom breaks a leg or suffers other injury.  It is not often that the picked skeleton of a horse is found in the hills.

This herd belonging to the Hubbell ranch charged through the night directly across the trail along which the moving picture company was riding.  Those on horseback could probably escape; but the motor-cars could not be driven very rapidly over the rough road.

The girls screamed as the cars bumped and jounced.  Out of the darkness appeared the up-reared heads and tossing manes of the ponies.  There were possibly three hundred in the herd, and they ran en masse, snorting and neighing, mad with that fear of the unknown which is always at the root of every stampede.

The automobile in which Ruth Fielding and her two friends, Helen and Jennie, were seated was the last of the string.  It seemed as though it could not possibly escape the stampede of half-wild ponies, even if the other cars did.

“Get down in the car, girls!” shouted Ruth, suiting her action to her word.  “Don’t try to jump or stand up.  Stoop!”

There was good reason for her command.  The plunging horses seemed almost upon the car.  Indeed one leader—­a big black stallion,—­snorting and blowing, jumped over the rear of the car, clearing it completely, and bounded away upon the other side of the trail.

He was ahead of the main stampede, however.  All that found the motor-car in the path could not perform his feat.  Some would be sure to plunge into the car where Ruth and Helen and Jennie crouched.