Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp | Page 9

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