"Sho," said Hugh, "you must have a mighty good way with animals."
"That's so," said Charley; "she has. Two years ago she took a bucking colt that we had, that nobody could ride without getting all jarred up, and commenced to fool with it, and now it's her saddle horse, the one she rode when she came up to-day."
"Sho," said Hugh; "didn't it hurt you when he bucked with you, Sis?"
"Why, no, he never did buck. The first time I got on him he went off as quiet as could be. But I didn't try to ride him for quite a while, until after I'd made friends with him. Then when he got right tame, I used to take him up to the horse block and get on it and pat him all over, and at last one day I jumped on him and sat there for a little while and then jumped off, and did this for a good many days, and then I tried riding him a little way."
"See there now," said Hugh, "that's what it is to understand how to treat an animal. If we had a few girls like you, Bess, working the horses on these prairies, there wouldn't be so many of 'em mean to ride."
Before supper was ended that evening it had been agreed that all hands should spend the next day on the mountain, gathering raspberries, which grew there in great abundance. It was arranged that the women should make an early start, and with Joe as driver should go up by the waggon road, while the others, on saddle horses, should ride up by the short trail. They would lunch and spend the day on the heights, returning in time for supper in the evening, with their berries.
By nine o'clock next morning, those who had climbed the mountain by the trail were scattered out through the raspberry patch, hard at work filling their buckets with the delicious fruit. An hour or two later the waggon arrived, and by midday all the pails were filled.
When Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Powell began to unpack their lunch, Hugh said to them, "If you'll wait half an hour before calling people to eat, I'll bring you something that you haven't seen for a long time, and that maybe will help you out with your drinking, if not with your eating." He called Jack and Charley to follow, and taking a couple of gunny sacks in his hand, strode off through the timber. The three climbed briskly the tall rocky hill, and emerging from the forest on to the slope above, found themselves standing at the edge of a deep and narrow gorge, in the bottom of which still lay a snowdrift. "Now," said Hugh, "let's jump down there and fill these sacks with this snow, and take it back to the women. I know Mrs. Carter fetched a jug of cream along, and a lot of sugar, and if we take them back some of this clean snow, maybe she can make some ice-cream. How would that go with the berries, eh?"
"First class," said both the boys. Jumping down into the snow they scraped away the dusty surface and partly filled the sacks with clean white snow. Then Hugh shouldered the heavier of the two, and Charley Powell the lighter one and they made their way down the hill to the party again.
When Mrs. Carter saw the snow she declared at once that she would give them ice-cream for their lunch, and before long all hands were enjoying the unusual luxury.