# Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
A SECOND IDA BELLETHORNE
The ravine was forty feet deep, and although the path, down which the gray horse slid with Betty Gordon on his back, was of sand and gravel only, there were some boulders and thick brush at the bottom that threatened disaster to both victims of the accident.
Swifly and more swiftly the frightened horse slid, and the girl had no idea what she should do when they came, bumpy-ti-bump to the bottom.
She heard Bob shouting something to her, but she did not immediately comprehend what he said. Something, she thought it was, about her stirrups. But this was no time or place to look to see if her stirrup leathers were the proper length or if her feet were firmly fixed in the irons, which both Bob and Uncle Dick had warned her about when first she had begun to ride.
Although she dared not look back, Betty knew that Bob had galloped to the very edge of the ravine and had now flung himself from his saddle. She heard his boots slam into the sliding gravel of the hill. He shouted again—that cheery hail ​that somehow helped Betty to hold on to her fast vanishing courage.
"Kick your feet out of the stirrups, Betty!"
What he meant finally seeped into Betty's clouded brain. She realized that Bob Henderson, her chum, the boy she had learned to have such confidence in, was coming down that bank in mighty strides, prepared to save her if it was possible.
The gray horse was struggling and snorting; he was likely to tumble sideways at any moment. If he did, and Betty was caught under him——
But she was not caught in any such crushing pressure. It was Bob's arm around her waist that squeezed her. She had kicked her feet loose of the stirrups, and now Bob, throwing himself backward, tore her out of the saddle. He fell upon his back, and Betty, struggling and laughing and almost crying, fell on top of him.
"All right, Betty! All right!" gasped Bob. "No need to squeal now."
"Who's squealing?" she demanded. "Let me up, do! Are you hurt, Bob?"
"Only the wind knocked out of me. Woof! You all right?"
"Oh, my dear!" shrieked Bobby at the top of the bank. "Are you killed, Betty?"
"Only half killed," gasped Betty. "Don't worry. Spread the news. Elizabeth Gordon, ​Miss Sharpe's prize Latin scholar, will yet return to Shadyside to make glad the heart of——"
"She's all right," broke in Tommy Tucker, having dismounted and looking over the brink of the bank. "She's trying to be funny. Her neck isn't broken."
"I declare, Tommy!" cried Louise Littell admonishingly, "you sound as though you rather thought her poor little neck ought to be dislocated."
"Cheese!" gasped Teddy, Tommy's twin. "You got that word out of a book, Louise—you know you did."
"So I did; out of the dictionary. There are a lot more of them there, if you want to know," and Louise laughed.
"Oh!" at this point rose a yearning cry. "Oh! I just think he is too dear for anything!"
"Cracky! What's broke loose now?" demanded Tommy Tucker, jerking back his head to stare all around at the group on the brink of the high bank.
"Who is too expensive, Libbie?" asked Bobby, glancing at her cousin with a look of annoyance displayed in her features.
"Robert Henderson. He is a hero!" gasped the plump girl.
"I know that hero has torn his coat," Louise said, still gazing down into the ravine.
Of course Bob had played a heroic part; but ​the rest of those present would have considered it almost indecent to speak of it as Libbie did. She continued to clasp her hands and gaze soulfully into the ravine. Bob, having made sure that Betty was all right, had gone down to the bottom of the slope and helped the gray horse to its feet. The animal was more frightened than hurt, although its legs were scratched some and it favored one fore foot when Bob walked it about.
"Dear me!" cried Betty, coming closer. "Poor old Jim! Is he hurt much, Bob?"
"I don't believe so," her friend replied.
"Can we get him up the bank?"
"I won't try that if there is any outlet to this ravine—and there must be, of course. Say! do you hear that silly girl?"
"Who? Libbie?" Betty began to giggle. "She is going to make a hero of you, Bob, whether you want to be or not. And you are——"
"Now, don't you begin," growled Bob.
"I never saw such a modest fellow," laughed Betty, giving his free hand a little squeeze.
"Huh! Libbie will want to put a laurel wreath on my brow if I climb up there. See! There is a bunch of laurels right over there—those glossy-leaved, runty sort of trees. Not for me! I am going to lead Jim out ahead, and you climb up, if you want to, and come along with the rest of the bunch. Ride my horse, if you will, Betty."
​"So you'd run away from a girl!" scoffed Betty, but laughing. "You are no hero, Bob Henderson."
"Sure I'm not," he agreed cheerfully. "And I'd run away from a girl like Libbie any day. I wonder how Timothy Derby stands for her. But he's almost as mushy as a soft pumpkin!"
With this disrespectful observation Bob started off with the gray horse and Betty scrambled up the bank down which she had plunged so heedlessly.
Bobby was one of those who had dismounted at the brink of the ravine, and she held out a brown hand to Betty as the latter scrambled up the last yard or two of the steep bank and helped her to a secure footing.
"Are you all right, Betty dear?" she cried.
"No. One side of me is left," laughed Betty. "Wasn't that some slide?"
"Now, don't try to make out that you did it on purpose!" exclaimed Esther, the youngest Littell sister.
"It was too lovely for anything," sighed Libbie.
"I'm glad you think so," said Betty. "Oh! you mean what Bob did. I see. Of course he is lovely—always has been. But don't tell him so, for it utterly spoils boys if you praise them—doesn't it Bobby?"
"Of course it does," agreed Betty's particular ​chum, whose real name, Roberta, was seldom used even by her parents.
"I like that!" chorused the Tucker twins. "Wait till we tell Bob, Betty," added Tommy Tucker, shaking his head.
"If you try to slide downhill on horseback again, we'll all just let you slide to the very bottom," said Teddy.
"Don't fret," returned Betty gaily. "I don't intend to take another such slide——"
"Not even if your Uncle Dick takes you up to Mountain Camp?" asked Bobby. "There's fine tobogganing up there, he says. Mmmm!"
"Don't talk about it!" wailed Betty. "You know we can't go, for school begins next week and Uncle Dick won't hear to anything breaking in on my schooling."
"Not even measles?" suggested Tommy Tucker solemnly. "Two of the fellows were quarantined with it when we left Salsette," he added.
"Oh! don't speak of such a horrid thing," gasped Libbie, who did not consider measles in the least romantic. "You get all speckled like—like a zebra if you have 'em."
The twins uttered a concerted shout and almost rolled out of their saddles into which they had again mounted after assisting the girls, Betty being astride Bob's horse.
"Speckled like a zebra is good!" Bobby Littell ​said laughingly to her plump cousin. "I suppose you think a barber's pole is speckled, Libbie?"
These observations attracted the deluded Libbie sufficiently from her hero-worship, so that when Bob Henderson came up out of the ravine to join them a mile beyond the scene of the accident, he was perfectly safe from Libbie's romantic consideration.
The boy and girl friends were then in a deep discussion of the chances, pro and con, of Betty's Uncle Dick taking her with him to Mountain Camp despite the imminent opening of the term at Shadyside.
"Of course there is scarcely a possibility of his doing so," Betty said finally with hopeless mien. "Mr. Canary—Uncle Dick's friend is named Jonathan Canary, isn't that a funny name?" she interrupted herself to ask.
"He's a bird," declared Teddy Tucker solemnly.
"Nothing romantic sounding about that name," his brother said, with a look at Llbbie. "'Jonathan Canary'—no poetry in that."
"He, he!" chuckled Ted wickedly. "Talking about poetry——"
"But we weren't!" said Bobby Littell. "We were talking about going to Mountain Camp in the Adirondacks. Think of it—in the dead of winter!"
​"Talking about poetry," steadily pursued Teddy Tucker. "You know Timothy Derby is always gushing."
"A 'gusher,'" interposed Betty primly, "is an oil well that comes in with a bang."
"Don't you mean it comes out with a bang?" teased Louise.
"In or out, Betty and I have seen 'em gush all right," cried Bob, as they cantered on together along a well-defined bridle-path.
"Say! I'm telling you something," exploded Teddy Tucker, who did not purpose to have his tale lost sight of. "Something about Timothy Derby."
"Oh, dear me, yes!" exclaimed Bobby. "Do tell it and get it over, Ted."
The twins both began to chuckle and Teddy had some difficulty in going on with his story. But it seemed they had been at the Derby place the evening before and Timothy had been "boring everybody to distraction," Ted said, reading "Excelsior" to the family.
"And believe me!" interjected Tommy Tucker, "that kid can elocute."
"And he's always been at it," hurried on his twin, giggling. "Here's what Mr. Derby says Timothy recited the first time he ever spoke a piece at a Sunday School concert. You know; the stuff the little mites cackle."
​"How elegant are your expressions, Teddy!" remarked Louise, sighing.
But she was amused as well as the others when Ted produced a paper on which he had written down the verse Mr. Derby said his son had recited, and just as Timothy had said it!
"Listen, all of you," begged Teddy. "Now, don't laugh and spoil it all, Tom. Listen:
"'Lettuce denby uppan doing Widow Hartford N E fate, Still H E ving, still pursuing, Learn to label Aunty Waite.'"
Libbie's voice rose above the general laughter, and she was quite warm. For Libbie's was a loyal soul.
"I don't care! I don't believe it. His father is always making fun of Timothy. He—he is cruel, I think. And, anyway, Timothy was only a little boy then."
"What did he want to label his Aunty Waite for?" demanded Bob.
"You all be pretty good," called Betty, seeing that Libbie was really getting angry. "If you aren't I'll ask Timothy and Libbie to my party at Mountain Camp and none of the rest of you shall go."
"Easy enough said, that, Betty," Bob rejoined. "You haven't very much chance of going there. ​But, crimpy! wouldn't it be great if Uncle Dick did take us?"
"Remember our school duties, children," drawled Louise. "'Still H E ving, still pursuing.' We must not cry for the moon."
Thus, with a great deal of laughter and good-natured chatter, the cavalcade trotted on and came finally to what Louise and Bobby said was the entrance to Bolter's Farm.
"All our horses were raised on this farm," explained Louise. "Daddy says that Lewis Bolter has the finest stock of any horseman in Virginia. Much of it is racing stock. He sells to the great stables up north. One of his men will know what to do for your gray's scratched legs, Betty."
For Betty had changed with Bob again and rode Jim, the horse that had slid down into the ravine. Betty was really sorry about the scratches and felt somehow as though she were a little to blame for the accident. She should have been more careful in guiding the gray.
Once at the great stables and paddocks, however, Betty's mind was relieved on this point. Louise had an errand from her father to Mr. Bolter and went away with Esther to interview the horse owner. Mr. Littell was a builder and constructor and he bought many work horses of Mr. Bolter's raising, as well as saddle stock.
If there was anything on four feet that Betty ​and Bob loved, it was a horse. In the west they had ridden almost continually; their mounts out at Flame City had been their dearest possessions and they would have been glad to bring them east, both Betty's Clover-pony and Bob's big white horse, had it been wise to do so.
At Shadyside and Salsette, however, there had been no opportunity for horseback riding. They had found pleasure in other forms of outdoor exercise. Now, enabled to view so many beautiful and sleek horses, Betty, as well as Bob and the others, dismounted with delight and entered the long stables.
While her gray was being examined by one of the stablemen, Betty went along a whole row of box stalls by herself, in each of which a horse was standing quietly or moving about. More than one came to thrust a soft muzzle over the door of the stall and with pointed ears and intelligent gaze seemed to ask if the pretty, brown-eyed girl had something nice in her pocket.
"Hi, Miss!" croaked a hoarse voice behind her. "If you want to see a bang-hup 'orse—a real topper—come down 'ere."
Betty turned to see a little crooked man, with one shoulder much higher than the other, who walked a good deal like a crab, sideways. He grinned at her cheerfully in spite of his ugly body and twisted features. He really was a dreadfully ​homely man, and he was not much taller than Betty herself. He wore a grimy jocky cap, a blue blouse and stained white trousers, and it was quite evident that he was one of the stable helpers.
"This 'ere is the lydy for you to see, Miss," continued the little man eagerly. "She's from old Hengland, Miss. I come with her myself and I've knowed her since she was foaled. Mr. Bolter ain't got in 'is 'ole stable, Miss, a mare like this one."
He pointed to a glossy black creature in the end box. Before the animal raised her head and looked over the gate, Betty knew that the mare from England was one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen.
"Hi, now, 'ow's that for a pretty lydy, Miss?" went on the rubber proudly.
"Oh! See! She knows you! Look at the beauty!" gasped Betty, as the black mare reached over the gate and gently nipped the blue sleeve of the crooked little man.
"Knows me? I should sye she does," he said proudly. "Why, she wouldn't take her meals from nobody but me. I told 'em so w'en I 'eard she was sold to Hamerica. And they found Hi was right, Miss, afore hever they got 'er aboard the ship. They sent for me, an' Mr. Bolter gave me a good job with 'er. I goes with Ida Bellethorne wherever she goes. That's the——"
​"Ida Bellethorne?" interrupted Betty in amazement.
"Yes, Miss. That's 'er nyme. Ida Bellethorne. She comes of the true Bellethorne stock. The last of the breed out o' the Bellethorne stables, Miss."
"Ida Bellethorne!" exclaimed Betty again. "Isn't that odd? A horse and a girl of the same name!"
But this last she did not say audibly. The cockney rubber was fondling the mare's muzzle and he did not hear Betty's comment. The discovery of this second Ida Bellethorne excited Betty enormously.