“Ahem!” began Lieutenant Wingate.
“Are you going to make a speech?” demanded Emma apprehensively.
“What I am about to say will answer your question. Grace has been suggesting that this outfit get together and spend the latter part of the summer in the open. That set my brain in operation.”
“Your what?” interrupted Emma.
Grace laughed merrily, and then begged Hippy’s pardon.
“Upon my return from the war,” resumed Hippy, unheeding the interruption, “my friend, Captain Jamieson, of the State Constabulary, asked me to volunteer to serve in the troop with him on strike duty. I did so. Girls, you have no idea of the joy I found in ‘packing leather,’ as the horsemen call it—horseback riding. After that experience with the troop, when Grace was speaking about an outing in the open, it occurred to me that the Overton Unit might work off its surplus energy in the saddle, and at the same time have a glorious outing. Brown Eyes, tell them of your experience in the saddle.”
Grace related how, after having been made an honorary member of the troop, she had taken up horseback riding and what a wonderful revelation it had been to her.
“Take my word for it, too, Brown Eyes already is as fine a rider as there is in the troop. The captain says she is a natural born horsewoman,” declared Hippy with enthusiasm. “Even my Nora promises that, hereafter, riding horseback is to be her own principal recreation. How many of you girls ride?”
Elfreda and Anne said they had ridden some when younger, but not recently. Emma Dean owned a pony, she said, but had not been on its back in more than two years.
“Good!” exclaimed Lieutenant Wingate. “You all at least know how to stick on leather, so we will proceed to the next stage of the journey. My great secret is no longer a secret. You already know what I am about to propose. Do you girls wish to join out with us for a month or so in the saddle?”