Alice B. Emerson

“ Not for me! I am going to lead Jim out ahead, and you climb up, if you want to, and come along with the rest of the bunch. Ride my horse, if you will, Betty."
"So you'd run away from a girl!" scoffed Betty, but laughing. "You are no hero, Bob Henderson."
"Sure I'm not," he agreed cheerfully. "And I'd run away from a girl like Libbie any day. I wonder how Timothy Derby stands for her. But he's almost as mushy as a soft pumpkin!"
With this disrespectful observation Bob started off with the gray horse and Betty scrambled up the bank down which she had plunged so heedlessly. ”

“ By nine o'clock, with the train pushing slowly on, the head locomotive aided by a pusher picked up at the junction, the berths were made up and everybody in the Pullman coach had retired.
Betty, as she lay in her upper berth with Libbie, heard the snow, or sleet, swishing against the side and roof of the car, and the sound lulled her to sleep. She slept like any other healthy girl and knew nothing of the night that passed. ”

“ But although she stood on a stool and thrust her arm out to her shoulder, her hand did not reach the open air!
"My goodness me!" gasped Betty Gordon. "We're stalled! We're snowbound! What shall we ever do if the snow doesn't melt pretty soon, or they don't come and dig us out?"
She washed in haste, and having brought her clothes with her, she dressed promptly. All the time she was considering what was to be done if, as it seemed, the train could not go on.
Just as she opened the door of the dressing room excited voices sounded at the end of the car. ”

“ Betty cried, and began to scramble up the sloping tunnel on hands and knees.
Both girls were warmly dressed, booted, and mittened. A little snow would not hurt them—not even a great deal of snow. And that a great deal had fallen and blown into this railroad cut, Betty and Bobby soon realized when they had scrambled out through what the latter had called "the chimney." ”

“ Bob said promptly. "Right after breakfast we'll borrow the little car and I'll take you over to Georgetown and we'll go to every place you went to yesterday, Betty, and inquire. I'm allowed to drive in the District of Columbia, you know."
"Will you, Bob?" cried Betty. "Do you think there is any chance of our finding it?"
"Why not? If it was picked up in one of the stores you went to. There are lots more honest people in the world than there are dishonest. Come on now, don't cry."
"I'm not going to cry," declared Betty. "I've cried enough already. Don't tell the others, Bob. Nor Uncle Dick. ”

“ I was so excited over the blouse and so interested in Ida Bellethorne that I don't remember of looking in my bag to see if my locket was safe."
"'Ida Bellethorne'?" repeated Bob in surprise. "Why! that's the name of Mr. Lewis Bolter's new mare from England. I heard Mr. Littell and Uncle Dick talking about her."
"And I met a girl named Ida Bellethorne. I'll tell you all about her later, Bob," said Betty. "Just now I want to know what to do about the locket." ”

“ Don't you see it, Uncle Dick?"
"The boy's right!" ejaculated Jaroth, with sudden anxiety. "It can't be that Bill and his woman were caught by this blizzard. He's as knowing about weather signs as an old bear, Bill is. And you can bet every bear in these woods is holed up till spring."
He even urged the plodding horses to a faster pace. The hut, buried in the snow to a point far above its eaves, was built against a steep hillside at the edge of the wood, with the drifted road passing directly before its door. ”

“ Gordon handed him his card and said:
"There are four girls, four boys, and myself. Quite a party."
"That is all right, Mr. Gordon," said Fred Jaroth cheerfully. "We often put up thirty people in the summer. We've a great ranch of a house. And I can help you up the bank yonder and beat you a path through the woods to the main road. Nothing simpler. Your trunks will get to Cliffdale sometime and you can carry your hand baggage."
"Not many trunks, thank goodness," replied Mr. Gordon. "What do you think, Betty? Does it sound good?" ”

“ There were eight in the young folks' meeting for Mrs. Littell insisted upon Esther's going to bed at a certain hour every evening "to get her beauty sleep."
"And I'll say she is sure to be a raving beauty when she grows up, if she keeps going to bed with the chickens," giggled Bobby.
"You know she can't go to Mountain Camp anyway," Louise said quietly, "for her school isn't measly and it begins again day after to-morrow."
"Poor Esther!" sighed Betty. "We must make it up to her somehow. I was afraid she would cry at dinner this evening."
"She's a good kid," agreed Bobby. ”

“ The value of that locket should have, in itself, made you particularly careful of it."
"I—I valued it more because you gave it to me, Uncle Dick," she sobbed.
"And yet that did not make you particularly careful," the gentleman reminded her. "The main trouble with you, Betty, is that you have no very clear appreciation of the value of money."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!" and she looked at him with trembling chin and tears welling into her eyes.
"And why should you?" he added, laughing more lightly and patting her hand. "You have never been obliged to earn money. ”

“ Bob Henderson had slipped around to her side of the table and leaned over her chair back to whisper in Betty's ear:
"You've got to be ready in twenty minutes. The horses won't stand this cold weather—not under saddle."
"Saddle! Horses!" gasped Betty Gordon, rising right up from the table with the soup spoon in her hand. ”

“ A girl and a horse both of the same name, and just recently from England! I'm going to ask right out what it means."
"Who are you going to ask—the horse?" giggled Bobby.
"Oh, you! No, I can't ask the pretty black mare," Betty said, shaking her head. "For she is going to be sent away for her health. She's got what they call 'distemper.' She has to be acclimated, or something."
"It sounds as though it might hurt," observed Bobby gravely.
"Something ought to hurt you," said Betty laughing. "You are forever and ever poking fun. ”

“ Uncle Dick seemed to have been on the watch for them, he came out so promptly. Although his hair was graying, especially about the temples, Mr. Richard Gordon was by no means an old looking man. He lived much out of doors and spent such physical energy only as his out-of-door life yielded, instead of living on his reserve strength as so many office-confined men do. Betty had learned all about that in physics. She was thoroughly an out-of-door girl herself! ”

“ Bob said thoughtfully. "And right now, let me tell you, this train is just about crawling, and that's all. Humph! The soup sure will get cold in that dining car at Tonawanda, if it waits there to be attached to our train."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby. "Don't let's think of it. I had no idea that snow could be so troublesome."
"Beautiful snow!" murmured Betty. "Say, Libbie. Recite that for us, will you? You know: the poetry about 'Beautiful Snow.' You or Timothy should remember it."
"Pah!" exclaimed Bobby, grumblingly. "I'll give you the proper version:
"Beautiful snow! ”

“ But don't tell him so, for it utterly spoils boys if you praise them—doesn't it Bobby?"
"Of course it does," agreed Betty's particular chum, whose real name, Roberta, was seldom used even by her parents.
"I like that!" chorused the Tucker twins. "Wait till we tell Bob, Betty," added Tommy Tucker, shaking his head.
"If you try to slide downhill on horseback again, we'll all just let you slide to the very bottom," said Teddy.
"Don't fret," returned Betty gaily. "I don't intend to take another such slide——"
"Not even if your Uncle Dick takes you up to Mountain Camp?" asked Bobby. ”

“ Will you please excuse me?"
"Not if you run away with my spoon, Betty," laughed her hostess. "It was the dish that ran away with the spoon, and you are not a dish, dear."
"She'll be dished if she doesn't hurry," called Bob from the door, and then he disappeared.
"Sit down and finish your luncheon, Betty," advised Mrs. Littell. "I assure you that they will not go without you. The men can walk the horses about a little if it is necessary."
"I haven't been in a saddle since I left the land of oil and my own dear Clover-pony!" cried Betty later, as she ran upstairs. ”

“ He is a hero!" gasped the plump girl.
"I know that hero has torn his coat," Louise said, still gazing down into the ravine.
Of course Bob had played a heroic part; but the rest of those present would have considered it almost indecent to speak of it as Libbie did. She continued to clasp her hands and gaze soulfully into the ravine. Bob, having made sure that Betty was all right, had gone down to the bottom of the slope and helped the gray horse to its feet. The animal was more frightened than hurt, although its legs were scratched some and it favored one fore foot when Bob walked it about. ”

“ There!" said Betty Gordon, soothingly. "Never mind. Uncle Dick will smooth him down. But I do think, boys, that you need not have got into trouble at all."
"Huh! that's our natural state." observed Teddy. "Boys out of trouble are like fish out of water. So my dad says. And he ought to know," he grinned. "He has twins."
Tommy considered, however, that he had got out of a bad box pretty easily.
"Your Uncle Dick is fine, Betty," he observed. "Think of his getting on the blind side of Major Pater so easy. But cracky! how that snow did squash all over him," and he ended with a wicked giggle. ”

“ The two girls did not tell Bob Henderson all that had happened in the little shop when they first came out. They were in too much haste to get to the other places where it might be possible that Betty had dropped her locket. Of all things, they did not suspect that Mrs. Staples knew the first thing about it.
But they did tell the boy that Ida Bellethorne had gone away.
"Where's she gone?" asked the inquisitive Bob. "Couldn't be that she found the locket and ran off with it?"
"Why, you're almost horrid!" declared Betty, aggrieved. "You don't know what a nice girl Ida is." ”

“ But it seemed they had been at the Derby place the evening before and Timothy had been "boring everybody to distraction," Ted said, reading "Excelsior" to the family.
"And believe me!" interjected Tommy Tucker, "that kid can elocute."
"And he's always been at it," hurried on his twin, giggling. "Here's what Mr. Derby says Timothy recited the first time he ever spoke a piece at a Sunday School concert. You know; the stuff the little mites cackle." ”

“ I don't believe it. His father is always making fun of Timothy. He—he is cruel, I think. And, anyway, Timothy was only a little boy then."
"What did he want to label his Aunty Waite for?" demanded Bob.
"You all be pretty good," called Betty, seeing that Libbie was really getting angry. "If you aren't I'll ask Timothy and Libbie to my party at Mountain Camp and none of the rest of you shall go."
"Easy enough said, that, Betty," Bob rejoined. "You haven't very much chance of going there. But, crimpy! wouldn't it be great if Uncle Dick did take us?" ”

“ If we don't find my locket I don't know what I shall do."
When Betty and Bobby came out of the store, much dissappointed, they found Bob grinning—as Bobby declared—"like a Cheshire cat."
"But never mind the cat," continued Bobby. "What is the matter with that boy? For boys will laugh at the most serious things. And this is serious, my poor, dear Betty."
"Indeed it is," agreed her friend, and so they crossed the walk to the grinning Bob Henderson who had the scrap of newspaper Betty had given him in his hand. ”

“ The twins uttered a concerted shout and almost rolled out of their saddles into which they had again mounted after assisting the girls, Betty being astride Bob's horse.
"Speckled like a zebra is good!" Bobby Littell said laughingly to her plump cousin. "I suppose you think a barber's pole is speckled, Libbie?"
These observations attracted the deluded Libbie sufficiently from her hero-worship, so that when Bob Henderson came up out of the ravine to join them a mile beyond the scene of the accident, he was perfectly safe from Libbie's romantic consideration. ”

“ Eustice will object to a simple little locket like mine, will she?"
"M-m-m! I don't know," replied Bobby. "You know she is awfully opposed to us girls wearing jewelry. And your locket is lovely. Just think! Platinum and a real diamond. Why! what is the matter, Betty?" ”

“ Staples. "Are either of you young ladies prepared to buy this blue blouse?"
"Oh, yes, indeed!" cried Bobby, who had taken a fancy to the blouse. "I've got money enough. And it was nice of Miss Bellethorne to finish it for me before she went. I wish I might thank her personally."
"I do not expect to see Ida again," the shopwoman repeated in her most severe manner, wrapping up the over-blouse. "Twelve dollars—thank you, Miss. Can I show you anything else?"
"Wait!" gasped Betty. "I want to ask you—I wanted to ask Ida Bellethorne if she saw me drop anything here in the store yesterday?" ”

“ Some of these country-town hotels up here in the woods are run in a more haphazard way than a lumber camp. And what you get to eat will come out of a can in all probability."
The boys groaned in unison at this, and even Betty looked woebegone.
"I wish you wouldn't talk about eating, Uncle Dick. Do you suppose we will catch up with that dining car?"
"I do not think we shall. But there is an eating room at the junction we are coming to. We can buy it out. I only hope there will be milk to be had for the little folks. There is at least one baby aboard. It's in the next car." ”

“ If there was anything on four feet that Betty and Bob loved, it was a horse. In the west they had ridden almost continually; their mounts out at Flame City had been their dearest possessions and they would have been glad to bring them east, both Betty's Clover-pony and Bob's big white horse, had it been wise to do so. ”