“What’s the joke, Virg,” Betsy said, “Let us all in on it. Is it something about Old Stoic?”
Virginia nodded. “Yes, it is,” she said merrily. “I believe after all I have wronged the old horse. I recall now that brother modified his statement that nothing could stir an interest in Stoic. There was one thing he said that could.”
“What was it?” Betsy was always curious about everything. None of the girls had a brain more eagerly alert.
“A bear! Malcolm said that Old Stoic can smell a bear farther than any horse he ever rode and run faster to try to get away from it, but apart from that, he shows no sign of interest in life except in doing his duty as a pack animal and doing it well.”
Betsy looked anxiously toward the rugged Seven Peak Range which they were approaching. “I say, Virg,” she said, “there aren’t any bears in the mountains these days are there?”
Then the questioner sighed with relief when she heard the reply.
“No, dear, nary a one, or so few that one seldom if ever appears. I did hear Lucky say last winter that he saw bear tracks in the snow way up north in the higher, colder mountains, but I don’t believe they come down this way now-a-days. They did, though, when Lucky was a boy. His father was a trapper and exciting tales he can tell. We’ll get him to recount the most thrilling of them for us some night when we’re all sitting around the fire.”
The girls having ridden for several miles without stopping were glad, when Virg suggested that they stop awhile in the shade of a giant cactus. Dismounting, she ran back to Old Stoic who had stopped with the others and slipping her hand into one of the saddle bags she brought out four oranges. “I’m not robbing the Wallace family,” she smilingly told them, “for I put these in here just for our very own refreshment. I knew we’d all be hot and thirsty by the time we reached this half-way point.”
The girls were indeed glad to eat the sweet juicy fruit. Betsy, unused to the saddle was also pleased to have a chance to stretch her legs, and so, slipping from her mount, she threw herself down on the sand, warm even in the shade of the cactus, but she was on her feet again almost as quickly when she heard Babs laughingly caution her. “Look out for tarantulas and scorpions.”
“Too, you might be lying directly over the hole of a rattler,” Megsy added. But Virg protested. “Let the poor girl rest. There isn’t a poisonous creature in our immediate neighborhood, I’ll vouch for that.”