"Do you really think she is in earnest about that nature stuff?" questioned Anne.
"She thinks she is, but of course she isn't. Emma, like many others, must have a hobby to ride. She, fortunately, is fickle in her hobbies, and rides one but a short time before she tires of it and casts it aside. What would we do on these journeys without her?" laughed Grace.
"Yes. Our Emma is a joy and a delight," nodded Anne.
After a brisk ride at a steady gallop, the Overlanders jogged into the one street that Bisbee's Corners possessed shortly after nine o'clock that evening, all thoroughly tired but happy, with Hindenburg sound asleep in the saddle bag.
The streets, they saw, were thronged with men, mostly lumberjacks, some singing, others shouting, and here and there a pair of them engaged in fist battles.
"Must have been paid off," observed Tom Gray. "We are getting near the Big Woods, folks."
"I should say we are," replied Grace, taking in the scene with keen interest. "I hear a fiddle. There must be a dance going on."
"A dance? Oh, let's go," cried Emma.
"Better listen to the voices of nature," answered Tom laughingly. "A lumberjack dance is no place for a refined woman, or man either, for that matter. Where to, Grace?"
"The general store. I'll go in. The girls had better stay on their horses, for I don't like the looks of things in Bisbee's."