Whether his impatient black horse would no longer wait or whether he broke off what he was saying by a jerk of the rein, Beatrice could not tell. His pony plunged, turned, and went galloping away down the road, leaving her and Buck to set their faces once more toward the cabin.
It did not take her many minutes to explain matters to Nancy and Aunt Anna, to gather up what she would need for the journey, and to bid them an excited good-by.
“Of course it is all right for me to go,” she assured her aunt in reply to some faint protest. “Hester goes often and she will be there to show me the way.”
She was away down the path as fast as Buck’s nimble feet would take her. When she rode up to the door of the next house, Hester was not immediately visible, but she appeared presently from the kitchen. With a troubled face she listened to the plan of their going across the mountain together.
“I wish I could go,” she said, “but old Julia has one of her attacks of rheumatism and I know I should not leave her. Won’t you wait a few days until I can go or Roddy can ride over for us?”
Beatrice, impatient and disappointed, sat silent in her saddle, thinking deeply. She looked down into the long, sun-flooded valley, then up at the sharp slopes above and the white, winding trail, calling her to the adventure.
“Why shouldn’t I go alone?” she asked boldly. “Where you can go, surely Buck and I can go also.”
Hester looked doubtful.
“The way is clear enough,” she said, “and not very hard going, but you have never ridden over it.”
Beatrice would listen to no objections. By the weight of her two years’ seniority and her natural determination, she speedily overcame all of Hester’s misgivings. She made her friend give her full directions, which she felt would be easy to follow.