When the boys were gone, the girls insisted on washing the breakfast dishes. Then they made their beds. As they expected, they found the saddled ponies waiting for them near the side door.
Mrs. Newcomb gave Mary a flat, soft parcel. “Slip it over your saddle horn, dear,” she suggested, “and tell Etta that the flannel in the parcel is for her to make into nighties for Baby Bess.”
Dusky was as beautiful a horse as Jerry had said. Graceful, slender-limbed, with a coat of soft gray-black velvet—the color of dusk. Dora’s mount was named “Old Reliable.” Mrs. Newcomb smoothed its near flank lovingly. “I used to ride this one all over the range, and even into town, when we were both younger,” she told them.
The girls cantered leisurely down the cottonwood shaded lane and then turned, not toward the right which led to the highway, but toward the left on a rough canyon road that ascended gradually up a low tree-covered mountain.
Brambly bushes grew along the trail showing that the ground was not entirely dry. A curve in the road revealed the reason. A wide, stony creek-bed was ahead of them, and, in the middle of it, was a crystal-clear, rushing stream.
The horses waded through the water spatteringly. Old Reliable seemed not to notice the little whirlpools at his feet, but Dusky put back his ears and did a bit of side stepping. Mary, unafraid, spoke gently and patted his glossy neck. With a graceful leap, the bank was reached. There was a steep scramble for both horses; loose rock rattled down to the brook bed.
When they were on the rutty, climbing road again, Dora laughingly remarked, “Dusky already knows the voice of his mistress.” If there was a hidden meaning in Dora’s remark, Mary did not notice it, for what she said was, “Dora, who would ever expect a cowboy to be poetic, but Jerry surely was when he named this horse, don’t you think so?”
“Yeah!” Dora replied inelegantly. To herself she thought, “That may be a hopeful sign, thinking Jerry is a poet in cowboy guise.”
“It’s lovely up this canyon road, isn’t it?” All unconsciously Mary was gazing about her, contentedly drinking in the beauty of the cool, shadowy, rocky places on either side. Aspen, ash and cottonwood trees grew tall, their long roots drawing moisture from the tumbling brook.
Half a mile up the canyon there was a clearing, and in it stood a very old log hut with adobe-filled cracks. A lean-to on one side had recently been put up. In a small, fenced-in yard were a dozen hens, and down nearer the brook was a garden patch. Two small, red-headed boys in overalls were there busily weeding. Near them, on a grassy plot, a spotted cow was tethered. Back of the house, hanging on a line, was a rather nondescript wash, but, nevertheless, it was clean.