Much as the party from The Forks wanted to go to the dinner, they felt that it was too late. They mingled with the crowd for a short while, talking and handshaking, and hearing from various persons that it had been a "pretty meeting." Then, half-famished, they fell upon the lunch they had brought with them, and, as soon as possible afterward, started homeward.
Fult helped Isabel on her nag last of all, and in a low voice, with handsome, imploring eyes, begged her to let the others ride on and wait a minute for him.
She said, "All right," and called out: "Lethie, come back—Mr. Fallon wants us to wait a minute for him."
Fult, flinging himself on his nag, darted a furious glance at her. A dark flush mounted to his very forehead. He rode beside the two girls in silence a few minutes, then quickened the pace until the three had caught up with the others. Just before the ascent of the mountain began, he jumped down, saying something about Isabel's saddle-girth, and did something to it, she could not see what.
He remounted, and they rode on as before, along the road as it wound around the lower part of the mountain. Then suddenly, at the first steep ascent, Isabel felt her girth give, her saddle slip from under her, and clutched wildly at her horse's mane.
Fult was at hand, and caught her before she could fall to the ground.
"Girt's broke," he said, "I allowed hit wasn't very safe. Anybody got a stout string, or a piece of ground-hog hide?"
Nobody had. "I'll have to ride back to that house nigh the burying-ground and get some," he said. "The rest of you go right on; you too, Lethie,—hit's getting late,—and me and Miss Isabel will catch up with you in just a little grain."
The others, including Lethie, rode on; and Isabel sat on a small bank alongside the road and waited for Fult, who was delayed somewhat longer than she had expected. At last he rode up, waving a string of ground-hog hide in his hand.
"Had to wait to cut the string off the hide," he explained.