“I’m not sorry to leave the Springs with its ailing visitors behind,” remarked Joan, as they got back into the saddles.
“Thank goodness we are not rheumatic, or gone to pieces, to have to come here to be mended again,” declared Julie.
“I should think the horrid water would kill them, instead of curing,” added Ruth, making a wry face at the remembrance of her taste of the waters.
“It isn’t the water that cures, remember,” said Mr. Gilroy, “it is the people’s faith in it. And some folks believe that the more disagreeable a cure tastes, the better it will act.”
From Hot Sulphur Springs the party rode through Goré Canyon, and then over the Goré Range, as Mr. Gilroy had planned. The climb up the latter mountains was one of the thrilling experiences of the trip.
Following Tally through an unbroken wilderness, they unexpectedly came upon an old lumber-road. Along this they trailed until it ended in a natural clearing of over a thousand acres. The park was surrounded by dense forests with apparently no trail leading from it.
“Here we are, boys! In, all right, but no way out,” called Mr. Vernon, smiling at the perplexed looks of the riders.
“That means that every one has to hunt for a blaze of some kind,” returned Mrs. Vernon.
“The blazes are here, all right, but the trail is such an old one that the young timber has, likely, grown up and hidden the old pines which carry the signs,” added Mr. Gilroy.
Thereupon, every scout began to thrash through bushes and between young trees, hunting for the much-desired blaze. It was Betty’s luck to find it, although she really wasn’t looking as anxiously for it as were the other scouts.