Kitty wavered; and was lost. Turning back she threw herself beside Blue Bonnet with a groan.
"My feet are one big blister," she moaned, her anger swallowed up in the anguish of the moment.
"We can't possibly walk," said Blue Bonnet. "And I've an idea. If that cloud of dust I saw on the road towards camp was Firefly and Rowdy—and it probably was—the girls will soon be after us."
And so it proved; except that it was Alec and Knight instead of the girls who came riding furiously down the road in search of them. When Alec heard Blue Bonnet's ranch-call he threw his hat in the air with a whoop of relief.
"We've been looking for your mangled remains all along the way," he declared, as they reached the girls. "We had the fright of our lives when Firefly and Rowdy came trotting into camp minus their riders."
"You thought we'd been thrown?" Blue Bonnet asked.
"I would have thought so if there had been only one, but it didn't seem likely that both of you could have come a cropper," Knight replied.
"Is Grandmother worried?" Blue Bonnet asked hastily.
"She doesn't know. The girls didn't tell her anything except that you and Kitty had loafed along the way. She didn't see the horses. But we'd better hurry back."
Each boy had led one of the errant ponies, and now the girls mounted and lost no time in getting back to camp.