“Oh, there has been a dreadful accident here! Is somebody buried under that pile of gravel?” demanded Betty.
“Not likely. Just a cayuse. Maybe a wandering critter. Happened to be right here—taking a drink at the riverside, maybe—when the slide fell. Or it might have been the cause of the slip. Came down with it,” Hurley explained in jerky sentences. “The weight of the hoss might have broke off a piece of the Overhang and—here he is!”
This seemed to satisfy him. He went back to his own horse and mounted again.
They rode several miles farther, but Joe Hurley did not seem quite so volatile as usual. Was he “studying” on the buried horse by the riverside? At least, when they rode back toward noon, he fell behind at the point where the small landslip had landed, halting his horse beside it for a moment. He overtook his friends in a short time, however, but did not say anything.
As they sighted the ford again, down from the upland on this side came a dashing and brilliant-hued figure—a girl on a cream-colored pony. Hunt recognized Nell Blossom at first glance.
“Hi, Nell!” shouted Hurley, raising his hand and arm, palm out, in the Indian peace sign.
She scarcely nodded to him, but she grinned elfishly as she rode down into the shallows and her pony’s flying feet spattered them all at the river’s edge. She scarcely seemed to give Hunt and his sister a glance. She plied the quirt that hung from her wrist, and the cream-colored pony recklessly forded the stream and climbed the further bank.
“How impolite,” murmured the Eastern girl, brushing the drops from her sleeve.
“She’s a little devil,” agreed Hurley frankly. “That’s the lady I was telling you of, Willie. She’s as wild as a jack rabbit.”
Hunt nodded soberly. He made no other comment. As they rode up into Main Street they heard wild yells and hootings from the far end, then the pattering of a pony’s rapid hoofbeats. Back toward the ford tore the cream-colored pony bearing the bizarre figure of the cabaret singer.