Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp by Alice B. Emerson

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"I don't know if it is best for you to," groaned Ida.

"Call Mrs. Candace." They were in the kitchen, and Ida ran to summon the
farm woman while Betty got into her coat. Mrs. Candace came, hurrying.

"What is this I hear?" she demanded. "I couldn't let you ride that horse.
You will be thrown or something."

"No I shan't, Mrs. Candace. I can ride. And Hunchie says the mare is
sharpened."

"So she is. I had forgotten," the woman admitted thoughtfully.

"And the poor fellow suffers so. Some lasting harm may be done if we don't
get a surgeon quickly. Where does Dr. Pevy live?" demanded Betty urgently.

The fact that the injured hostler was really in great pain and possibly in
some danger, caused Mrs. Candace finally to agree to the girl's demand.
Betty ran out with Ida to get the mare and saddle her. Betty was not
dressed properly for such a venture as this; but she wore warm
undergarments, and stout shoes.

The black mare was so gentle with all her spirit and fire that Betty did
not feel any fear. She and Ida led the beautiful creature out upon the
barn floor and found saddle and bridle for her. In ten minutes Betty was
astride the mare and Ida led her out of the stable.

Mrs. Candace had already given Betty clear directions regarding the way to
Dr. Pevy's; but she now stood on the door-stone and called repetitions of
these directions after her.

Bobby waved her fur piece and shouted encouragement too. But Ida
Bellethorne ran into the house to attend the injured Hunchie and did not
watch Betty and the black mare out of sight as the others did.

CHAPTER XX

BETTY'S RIDE

When Betty Gordon and her young friends had set out from Mountain Camp on
their snowshoe hike the sun shone brilliantly and every ice-covered branch
and fence-rail sparkled as though bedewed with diamond dust. Now that it
was drawing toward noon the sky was overcast again and the wind, had Betty
stopped to listen to it, might be heard mourning in the tops of the pines.

But Ida Bellethorne, the black mare, gave Betty no opportunity of stopping
to listen to the wind mourn. No, indeed! The girl had all she could do for
the first mile or two to keep her saddle and cling to the reins.

When first they set forth from the Candace stables the mare went gingerly
enough for a few rods. She seemed to know that the frozen crust of the old
drifts just beneath the loose snow was perilous.

But her sharpened calks gave her a grip on the frozen snow that the wise
mare quickly understood. She lengthened her stride. She gathered speed.
And once getting her usual swift gait, with expanded nostrils and erect
ears, she skimmed over the frozen way as a swallow skims the air. Betty
had never traveled so fast in her life except in a speeding automobile.

She could easily believe that Ida Bellethorne had broken most of the track
records of the English turf. She might make track history here in the
United States, if nothing happened to her!

Betty was wise enough to know that, had Mr. Candace been at home, even in
this earnest need for a surgeon he would never have allowed the beautiful
and valuable mare to have been used in this way. But there was no other
horse on the place that could be trusted to travel at any gait.

Ida Bellethorne certainly was traveling! The speed, the keen rush of the
wind past her, the need for haste and her own personal peril, all served
to give Betty a veritable thrill.

If Ida made a misstep--if she went down in a heap--Betty was pretty sure
that she, herself, would be hurt. She retained a tight grip upon the
reins. The mare was no velvet-mouthed animal. Betty doubted if she had the
strength in her arms to pull the creature down to a walk now that she was
started.

The instructions Mrs. Candace had given the girl pointed to a descent into
the valley for some miles, and almost by a direct road, and then around a
sharp turn and up the grade by a branch road to the village where Dr. Pevy
lived. Betty was sure she would not lose her way; the question was, could
she cling to the saddle and keep the mare on her feet until the first
exuberance of Ida's spirit was controlled? The condition of the road did
not so much matter, for once the mare found that she did not slip on the
crust she trod the way firmly and with perfect confidence.

"She is a dear--she undoubtedly is," Betty thought. "But I feel just as
though I were being run away with by a steam engine and did not know how
to close the throttle or reverse the engine. Dear me!"

She might well say "dear me." Uncle Dick would surely have been much
worried for her safety if he could know what she was doing. Betty by no
means appreciated in full her danger.

Indeed, she scarcely thought of danger. Ida Bellethorne seemed as
sure-footed as a chamois. Her calks threw bits of ice-crust behind her,
and she never slipped nor slid. There was nobody on the road. There was
not even the mark of a sledge, although along the ditch were the shuffling
prints of snowshoes. Some pedestrian had gone this way in the early
morning.

This was not the road by which Betty and her friends had been transported
by Mr. Jaroth. There was not even a hut like Bill Kedders' beside it. In
places the thick woods verged right on the track on either side and in
these tunnels it seemed to be already dusk.

It flashed into Betty's mind that there might be savage animals in these
thick woods. Bears, and wild cats, and perhaps even the larger Canadian
lynx, might be hovering in the dark wood. It would not be pleasant to have
one of those animals spring out at one, perhaps from an overhanging limb,
as the little mare and her rider dashed beneath!

"Just the same," the girl thought, "at the pace Ida Bellethorne is
carrying me, such wild animals couldn't jump quick enough to catch me.
Guess I needn't be afraid of them."

There were perils in her path--most unexpected perils. Betty would never
have even dreamed of what really threatened her. For fifteen minutes Ida
Bellethorne galloped on and the girl knew she must have come a third of
the way to Dr. Pevy's office.

The mare's first exuberance passed. Of her own volition she drew down to a
canter. Her speed still seemed almost phenominal to the girl riding her,
but Betty began to feel more secure in the saddle.

They reached the top of a steep hill. The hedge of tall pines and
underbrush drew closer in on either side. The road was very narrow. As
the mare started down the incline it seemed as though they were going into
a long and steep chute.

Before this Betty had noted the ice-hung telephone and telegraph wires
strung beside the road. Sheeted in the frozen rain and snow the heavy
wires had dragged many of the poles askew. Here and there a wire was
broken.

It never entered the girl's mind that there was danger in those wires.
And, perhaps, in most of them there was not. But across this ravine into
which the road plunged, and slantingly, were strung much heavier
wires--feed cables from the Cliffdale power station over the hill.

"Why, look at those icicles!" exclaimed Betty, with big eyes and watching
the hanging wires ahead. "If they fell they would kill a person, I do
believe!"

She tugged with all her might at Ida Bellethorne's reins, and now, well
breathed, the mare responded to the unuttered command. She came into a
walk. Betty continued to stare at the heavily laden wires spanning the
road, the heavier power wires above the sagging series of telephone and
telegraph wires.

In watching them so closely the girl discovered another, and even more
startling fact. One of the poles bearing up the feed wires was actually
pitched at such an angle from the top of the bank on the right hand that
Betty felt sure the wires themselves were all that held the pole from
falling.

"There is going to be an accident here," declared the girl aloud. "I
wonder the company doesn't send out men to fix it. Although I guess they
could not prop up that pole. It has gone too far."

Even as she spoke the mare stopped, snorting. Her instinct was more keen
than Betty's reasoning.

With a screeching breaking and tearing of wood and wire the trembling pole
fell! Betty might, had she urged her mount, have cleared the place and
escaped. But the girl lacked that wisdom.

The pole fell across the deep road and its two heavy cables came in
contact with the wires strung from the other poles below. Instantly the
ravine was lit by a blinding flash of blue flame--a flame that ran from
wire to wire, from pole to pole, melting the ice that clung to them,
hissing and crackling and giving off shooting spears of flame that
threatened any passer-by.

The mare, snorting and fearful, scrambled back, swerved, and tried to
escape from the ravine; but Betty had her under good control now. She had
no spurs, but she yanked savagely at the bit and wheeled Ida Bellethorne
again to face the sputtering electric flames that barred the road.

Only a third of the way to the doctor's and the way made impassable! What
should she do? If she turned back, Betty did not know where or how to
strike into the thick and pathless forest. Hunchie, suffering from his
injured leg, must be aided as soon as possible. Her advance must not be
stayed.

Yet there before her the sparking, darting flames spread the width of the
ravine. Burning a black hole already in the deep drifts, the crossed wires
forbade the girl to advance another yard!

CHAPTER XXI

BETTY COMES THROUGH

Betty admitted that she was badly frightened. She was afraid of the
crossed wires, and would have been in any case. The spurting blue flames
she knew would savagely burn her and Ida Bellethorne if they touched them,
and the wires might give a shock that would kill either girl or horse.

But seven miles or so beyond those sputtering flames was Dr. Pevy's
office. And Dr. Pevy was needed right away at Candace Farm.

A picture of poor Hunchie lying white and moaning in the bed rose in
Betty's memory. She could not return and report that it was impossible for
her to reach the doctor's office. Afraid as she was of the crossed wires,
she was more afraid of showing the white feather.

If Bob Henderson were here in her situation Betty was sure he would not
back down. And if Bob could overcome difficulties, why couldn't Betty? The
thought inspired the girl to do as Bob would do--come through.

"I must do it!" Betty choked, holding the mare firmly headed toward the
writhing, crackling wires. "Ida! Get up! You can jump it.
You--just--must!"

The black mare crouched and snorted. Betty would have given a good deal
for tiny spurs in the heels of her shoes or for a whip to lay along the
mare's flank. Spirited as the creature was, and well trained, too, her
fear of fire made her shrink from the leap.

There was a width of six feet of darting flames. The electricity in the
heavy cables was melting the other wires, and from the broken end of each
wire the blue light spurted. The snow was melting all about, turning black
and yellow in streaks. Betty did not know how long this would keep up; but
every minute she delayed poor Hunchie paid for in continued suffering.

"We must do it!" she shrieked to the horse. "You've got to--there!"

She whipped off her velvet hat and struck Ida Bellethorne again and again.
The mare crouched, measured the distance, and leaped into the air. Well
for her and for Betty that Ida Bellethorne had a good pedigree; had come
of a long line of forebears that had been taught to jump hedges, fences,
water-holes and bogs. None of them had ever made such a perilous leap as
this!

The mare landed in softening snow, for the scathing flames were melting
the drifts on either side. Betty had felt the rush of heat rising from
the cables and had put her hat over her face.

Ida Bellethorne squealed. Without doubt she had been scorched somewhere.
And now secure on her feet she darted away through the ravine, running
faster than she had run while Betty had bestrode her.

Betty could not glance back at the sputtering wires. She must keep her
gaze fixed ahead. Although at the speed the mare was now running it is
quite doubtful if the girl could have retarded her mount in any degree.
They came to the forks that Mrs. Candace had told her of, and Betty
managed to turn the frightened mare up the steeper road to the left. There
were few landmarks that the snow had not hidden; but the way to Dr. Pevy's
was so direct that one could scarcely mistake it.

Ida Bellethorne began to cool down after a while and Betty could guide her
more easily. She had begun to talk to the pretty creature soothingly, and
leaned forward in her saddle to pat the mare's neck.

"I don't blame you for being scared, Ida Bellethorne," crooned Betty. "I
was scared myself, and I'm scared yet. But don't mind. Just be easy. Your
pretty black apron in front is all spattered with froth, poor dear! I
wonder if this run has done your cough any harm--or any good. Anyway, you
haven't coughed since we started."

But Betty knew that if the mare stood for a minute she must be covered and
rubbed down. She had this in her mind when she came to the blacksmith shop
and the store, directly opposite each other. Dr. Pevy's, she had been
told, was the second house beyond on the blacksmith side of the road.

It proved to be a comfortable looking cottage with a barn at the back, and
she urged Ida Bellethorne around to the barn without stopping at the
house. The barn door was open and a man in greasy overalls was tinkering
about a small motor-car. He was a pleasant-looking man with a beard and
eyeglasses and Betty was sure he must be the doctor before he even spoke
to her.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the amateur machanic, rising up with a wrench in one
hand and an oil can in the other. "Whew! That mare has been traveling
some. And such a beauty! You're from Bill Candace's I'm sure. Did she run
away with you? Here, let me help you."

But Betty was out of the saddle and had led the mare in upon the floor,
although Ida Bellethorne looked somewhat askance at the partly dismantled
car.

"Needn't be afraid of the road-bug, my beauty," said Dr. Pevy, putting out
a knowing hand to stroke the mare's neck. "She must be rubbed down and a
cloth put on her----"

"I know," said Betty hastily. "I'll do it if you'll let me. But can you go
back with me, Doctor?"

"To the Candace Farm?"

"Yes, sir. A man has been seriously hurt and there was nobody else to
come."

"Wonder you got here without having a fall," said Dr. Pevy.

"She is sharpened. And she is a dear!" gasped Betty. "But I hope you can
start right away. Hunchie is suffering so."

"Can't use the road-bug, that's sure," said Dr. Pevy, glancing again at
the car. "That's why I was doctoring her now while the snow is too deep.
But I still have old Standby and the sleigh. I'll start back with you in a
few minutes and we'll lead the mare. The exercise will do her good. My!
What a handsome creature she is."

"Yes, sir. She is quite wonderful," said Betty; and while they gave Ida
Bellethorne the attention she needed Betty told the doctor all about
Hunchie and her ride through the forest. When Dr. Pevy heard about the
broken wires in the road, he went to the house and telephoned to the
Cliffdale power house to tell them where the break was. The linemen were
already searching for it.

"That peril will be averted immediately," he said coming back with his
overalls removed, a coat over his arm and carrying his case in his other
hand. "That's it, my dear. Walk her up and down. Such a beauty!"

He got out his light sleigh and then led Standby, a big, red-roan horse,
out on the floor to harness him.

"These automobiles are all right when the snow doesn't fly," Dr. Pevy
remarked. "But up here in the hills we have so much snow that one has to
keep a horse anyway or else give up business during the winter. You were a
plucky girl to come so far on that mare, my dear. A Washington girl, you
say?"

"We just came from Washington," Betty explained. "But I can't really claim
to belong there. I--I'm sort of homeless, I guess. I do just love these
mountains and this air."

"This air," commented Dr. Pevy, "smells just now of a storm. And I think
it may drizzle again. Now, if you are ready, my dear."

He unbuckled Ida Bellethorne's bridle rein and made it a leading rein. He
helped Betty into the sleigh and gave her the rein to hold. The mare led
easily, and merely snorted when Standby leaned into the collar and started
the sleigh.

The roan was heavy footed, and his shoes, too, were calked. They started
off from the village at a good jog with the blanketed black mare trotting
easily behind the sleigh.

Betty tried to mould her velvet hat into shape. It had been a hat that she
very much prized, and was copied after one Ada Nansen wore, and Ada set
the fashions at Shadyside. But that little hat would never be the same
again after being used as a goad for Ida Bellethorne. Betty sighed, and
gave up her attempt.

When they came to the place in the ravine where the wires were down Dr.
Pevy drew up Standby. The mare snorted, recognizing the spot. But the
electrical display was over, for the power had been turned off.

"You certainly must have had a narrow squeak here," remarked the
physician, as he looked at the fallen wires.

"Oh, Doctor, it was awful!" breathed Betty. "I thought sure that we were
going to have the worst kind of accident."

"The company ought really to put up a new line of poles, so many of these
are getting rotten," was the doctor's reply. "But I suppose they are hard
up for money these days, and can afford only the necessary repairs."

The sleigh climbed the mountain after that to the Candace Farm. As they
came in sight of it Betty saw the troop of young stock being driven in
through the lane, and saw Bob and Tommy with the stock farmer and his men.
It was well she had ventured for the doctor on the black mare, or poor
Hunchie Slattery would have suffered much longer without medical
attention.

Bobby ran out to meet them when the sleigh came into the yard. Mrs.
Candace stood at the back door explaining to the red-faced man, her
husband. It was Bob who came to take the leading rein of the black mare
from Betty's hand.

"Cricky!" he exclaimed. "What have you been up to now, Betsey? Is this
that English mare? Isn't she a beauty! And you've been riding her?"

"I've been flying on her," sighed Betty, "Don't talk, Bob! I never expect
to travel so fast in the saddle again unless I become a jockey. And I know
I am growing too fat for that."

CHAPTER XXII

ON THE BRINK OF DISCOVERY

The three girls and their boy friends remained at the farm until Dr. Pevy
had set the bad fracture that Hunchie had suffered and the poor little man
had been made as comfortable as he could be made at the time. He had been
badly shaken in falling so far at the barn, and the surgeon declared he
would be confined to his bed for some weeks.

"And oo's to take care of Ida Bellethorne, I ask you?" demanded Hunchie
faintly. "Mr. Bolter hexpects me to give hundivided hattention to 'er."

"She shall have the best of care," said Candace, the farmer, warmly. "A
mare like her ought to be bedded down in roses. The way she took this
little girl over the drifts was a caution. She is some horse, she is! We
will give her the best of attention, Hunchie, never you fear."

The cockney was so much troubled about his charge that he seemed to have
forgotten Ida Bellethorne, the girl. But Betty heard him say one thing to
Ida before they left.

"You ought to be 'appy, Miss Ida, even if the mare was sold. She brought a
good price, and ev'rybody about Bellethorne Park knows as Mr. Bellethorne
give 'er to you when she was a filly. I 'ope you'll come to see us
again--me and the mare."

"I surely will, Hunchie," said the English girl.

But when they came out of the house and bade the family good-bye, Betty
saw that Ida was very grave. Hunchie's words seemed to have been
significant.

It was late in the afternoon when the quintette arrived at Mountain Camp.
Mrs. Canary had expressed some anxiety about them, but Uncle Dick had
scouted any peril that might threaten the young folks. He admitted that he
had overlooked some possibilities when he heard the full account of their
adventures--and especially of his niece's adventures--at the dinner table.

"I declare, Betty," he said with some little exasperation, "I believe if
you were locked inside a trunk with only gimlet holes to breathe through
you would manage to get into trouble."

"I think I'd be in trouble fast enough in that case," answered Betty,
laughing.

"I don't know," said Louise thoughtfully. "Locked up in a box, you really
couldn't get into much harm, Betty."

"Sure she could get into trouble," declared Bobby. "Bees could crawl in
through the gimlet holes and sting her."

"I'd like to have seen her jumping that fire on horseback," sighed Libbie.
"It must have been wonderful!"

Mr. Gordon looked rather disturbed as he stared at his niece.

"That's exactly what I shouldn't want to see her do," he said. "I do not
know what I am going to do if, as she gets older, she grows more
energetic," he added to Mr. and Mrs. Canary. "Betty is more than a handful
for a poor bachelor uncle, I do believe!"

He forbade any more excursions away from the camp after that unless the
excursionists took some adult person with them. He went himself to Candace
Farm to see Hunchie Slattery; but he took only Ida Bellethorne with him.
They went on their snowshoes. During this trip Mr. Gordon won the abiding
confidence of the girl.

Meanwhile the youthful visitors at Mountain Camp allowed no hour to be
idle. There was always something to do, and what one could not think of in
the way of fun another could.

Mr. Canary's men had smoothed a coasting course down the hillside to the
lake not a quarter of a mile from the Overlook. There was a nest of
toboggans in one of the outhouses. Tobogganing afforded the nine young
people much sport.

For the others insisted that Ida Bellethorne share in all their good
times. She declared she never would get Libbie's blouse done in time; but
Libbie said that she could finish it afterward and send it on to
Shadyside. Just now the main thing was to crowd as much fun as possible
into the remaining days of their vacation.

The young folks from Fairfields were paired off very nicely; but they did
not let Ida feel that she was a "fifth wheel," and she really had a good
time. These snow-sports were so unfamiliar to her that she enjoyed them
the more keenly.

"I do think these boys are so nice," she said to Betty as they climbed the
hill from the lakeshore, dragging the toboggan behind them by its rope.

"Of course they're nice," said the loyal Betty. "Especially Bob Henderson.
He's just like a brother to me. If he wasn't nice to you I should scold
him--that I should, Ida."

"I never can repay you for your kindness," sighed the English girl, quite
serious of visage. "And your uncle, too."

Betty flashed her a penetrating look and was on the verge of speaking of
something that she, at least, considered of much importance. Then she
hesitated. Ida had never mentioned the possibility of Betty's having
dropped anything in Mrs. Staples' store. Betty shut her lips tight again
and waited. If Ida did know anything about her lost locket, Betty wanted
the English girl to speak of it first.

They went in to dress for dinner that afternoon just before a change in
the weather. A storm had been threatening for some hours, and flakes of
snow began to drift down before they left the slide.

"Let's dress up in our best, girls," Louise said gaily. "Put on our best
bibs and tuckers. Make it a gala occasion. Teddy, be sure and scrub behind
your ears, naughty boy!"

"I feel as though I ought to be in rompers the way you talk," said the
Tucker twin, but he laughed.

The boys ran off to "primp," and what the girls did to make themselves
lovely, Libbie said "was a caution!" One after the other they came into
Betty's and Bobby's room and pirouetted to show their finery. Ida had been
decked out very nicely by her friends, and her outfit did not seem shabby
in the least.

But the English girl noted one thing about Betty, and it puzzled her. The
other girls from Shadyside School wore their pieces of jewelry while Betty
displayed not a single trinket. As the other girls were hurrying out to
join the boys and descend to the big hall, Ida held Betty back.

"Where is it, Betty?" she asked. "Don't you wear it at all? Are you
afraid of losing it again?"

"What do you mean?" asked Betty, her heart pounding suddenly and her eyes
growing brighter. Ida Bellethorne placed her hand upon Betty's chest,
looking at her closely as she asked the question:

"Didn't Mrs. Staples give it to you? That beautiful locket, you know.
Aren't you allowed to wear it?"

CHAPTER XXIII

CAN IT BE DONE?

"Dear me!" exclaimed Betty. "How curious you are. I am not allowed to wear
my diamond earrings that Doctor and Mrs. Guerin gave me, of course. They
are the old-fashioned kind for pierced ears, and would have to be reset,
and diamonds are too old for me anyway. But Uncle Dick lets me wear any
thing else I own----"

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