Page:Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp.djvu/170

160 with expanded nostrils and erect ears, she skimmed over the frozen way as a swallow skims the air. Betty had never traveled so fast in her life except in a speeding automobile.

She could easily believe that Ida Bellethorne had broken most of the track records of the English turf. She might make track history here in the United States, if nothing happened to her!

Betty was wise enough to know that, had Mr. Candace been at home, even in this earnest need for a surgeon he would never have allowed the beautiful and valuable mare to have been used in this way. But there was no other horse on the place that could be trusted to travel at any gait.

Ida Bellethorne certainly was traveling! The speed, the keen rush of the wind past her, the need for haste and her own personal peril, all served to give Betty a veritable thrill.

If Ida made a misstep—if she went down in a heap—Betty was pretty sure that she, herself, would be hurt. She retained a tight grip upon the reins. The mare was no velvet-mouthed animal. Betty doubted if she had the strength in her arms to pull the creature down to a walk now that she was started.

The instructions Mrs. Candace had given the girl pointed to a descent into the valley for some miles, and almost by a direct road, and then