I’d like to be in your boots, yet again I wouldn’t.”

“What did he mean by saying it was worth a lot to have Edd Denmeade see me riding his horse?”

“It was a compliment to you, especially his emphasis on the qualifying adjective before girl,” replied the teacher, with a chuckle. “You see, Edd Denmeade seems a superior sort of person to most of the boys. Really he is only forceful—a strong, simple, natural character. But the boys don’t understand him. And the girls do still less. That is why I suspect some have refused to marry him. Sam now is tickled to have Edd see the very prettiest girl who ever came to Cedar Ridge ride up on his horse. Edd will be wild with jealousy.”

“Goodness! I’m afraid most girl visitors here have been homely,” replied Lucy.

“No, they haven’t been, either,” declared the teacher. “Now, Miss Watson, we have a mile or so of good sandy road before we cut off on the trails. Let’s have a gallop. But be sure you don’t do what Sam hinted—run off from me. You might get lost.”

With that he urged his mount from walk to trot and from trot to gallop. Lucy’s horse did not need urging; he bolted and shot down the road ahead of Mr. Jenks. Lucy was alarmed at first and found it hard to keep her feet in the stirrups. But soon she caught the swing of the mustang and then a wild impulse prompted her to let him run. How fast he sped on under the pines. His gait made the saddle seem like a rocking-chair. But she hauled hard on Buster, obedient to the resolve she had made—that she would restrain herself in all ways. Pulling him to a swinging canter, Lucy took stock of pleasant sensations. The rush through the pine-scented air was exhilarating; soon the exercise had her blood dancing all over her; low branches of pine tore at her hair; the turns of the winding road through the woods allured with their call of strange new scenes. Rabbits darted ahead of her, across the open, into the pine thickets. At length, some distance ahead she saw where the road forked, and here she brought Buster to a stand. She was tingling, pulsing with heated blood, and felt that she could have cried out with the joy of the moment.

Mr. Jenks came galloping up to halt beside her. “That was bully,” he said. “Miss Watson, you need not be ashamed of your riding…We take the left-hand road. That to the right goes on to my log-cabin school. I wish we had time to see it. A little way farther we strike a trail.”

Soon after that Lucy was riding behind the teacher along a narrow trail that almost at once began to lead downhill.