This time it was Mollie who held back.
"How about the weather?" she demurred. "Looks as if we were likely to get wet."
"Who cares?" said Betty airily, adding, as she stopped at the door to make them a little bow: "It would give us an excuse to see His Highness again."
Half an hour later they had saddled their ponies and were cantering off briskly to visit the Hermit of Gold Run.
"Aren't you a little bit afraid to go in there?" asked Amy, reining in as they reached the narrow trail through the woods that led near the musician's cabin. "We might run into some wolves, as we did that other time."
"We were much further in the woods than the Hermit's cabin," said Mollie impatiently. "And it was in an entirely different direction, too. Go ahead, silly, or I'll ride right over you," and as she was urging Old Nick forward until he crowded uncomfortably against the little white filly, Amy had no other course but to do as she was bid.
Nevertheless, she was not the only one who was uneasy, and it might have been observed that the girls glanced often into the shadows of the underbrush on either side of the narrow trail.
There were wild animals in that forest, as they had good reason to know, and though they seldom ventured this close to civilization, still there was no use in tempting fate!
"I didn't know it was as far in as this," said Grace, after they had ridden some distance in silence. "Are you sure we haven't passed the cabin, Betty?"
"Why, we aren't nearly there yet," was Betty's discomforting reply. "It's quite a way beyond that next turn in the trail."