And right there a desperate determination came into Helen Morrell’s mind. She had learned that on the west side of Central Park there was a riding academy. She was hungry for an hour in the saddle. It seemed to her that a gallop would clear all the cobwebs away and make her feel like herself once more.
The house was still silent and dark. She took her riding habit out of the closet, made it up into a bundle, and crept downstairs with it under her arm. She escaped the watchful Lawdor for once, and got out by the area door before even the cook had crept, yawning, downstairs to begin her day’s work.
Helen, hurrying through the dark, dripping streets, found a little restaurant where she could get rolls and coffee on her way to the Columbus Circle riding academy. It was still early when the girl from Sunset Ranch reached her goal. Yes, a mount was to be had, and she could change her street clothes for her riding suit in the dressing-rooms.
The city—at least, that part of it around Central Park—was scarcely awake when Helen walked her mount out of the stable and into the park. The man in charge had given her to understand that there were few riders astir so early.
“You’ll have the bridle-path to yourself, Miss, going out,” he said.
Helen had picked up a little cap to wear, and astride the saddle, with her hair tied with a big bow of ribbon at the nape of her neck, she looked very pretty as the horse picked his way across the esplanade into the bridle-path. But there were few, as the stableman had said, to see her so early in the morning.
It did not rain, however. Indeed, there was a fresh breeze which, she saw, was tearing the low-hung clouds to shreds. And in the east a rosy spot in the fog announced the presence of the sun himself, ready to burst through the fleecy veil and smile once more upon the world.
The trees and brush dripped upon the fallen leaves. For days the park caretakers had been unable to rake up these, and they had become almost a solid pattern of carpeting for the lawns. And down here in the bridle-path, as she cantered along, their pungent odor, stirred by the hoofs of her mount, rose in her nostrils.
This wasn’t much like galloping over an open trail on a nervous little cow-pony. But it was both a bodily and mental relief for the outdoor girl who had been, for these past weeks, shut into a groove for which she was so badly fitted.
She saw nobody on horseback but a mounted policeman, who turned and trotted along beside her, and was pleasant and friendly. This pleased Helen; and especially was she pleased when she learned that he had been West and had “punched cows” himself. That had been some years ago, but he remembered the Link-A—now the Sunset—Ranch, although he had never worked for that outfit.