. Bell is on my mind.
Besides, did you see those ferocious Indians hanging round?"

Well, I had seen them, but said nothing.

"They would scalp one as quick as not," Aggie went on. "And who's to
know but that our guide will be in league with them? I've lost my
teeth," she said with a flash of spirit, "but so far I've kept my hair,
and mean to if possible. That old Indian has a scalp tied to the end of
a stick. Lizzie, I'm nervous."

"If it is only hair they want, I don't mind their taking my switch," I
observed, trying to be facetious, although uneasy. As to the switch, it
no longer matched my hair, and I would have parted from it without a
pang.

"And another thing," said Aggie: "Tish can talk about ponies until she
is black in the face. The creatures are horses. I've seen them."

Well, I knew that, too, by that time. As we walked to the hotel from the
train I had seen one of than carrying on. It was arching its back like a
cat that's just seen a strange dog, and with every arch it swelled its
stomach. At the third heave it split the strap that held the saddle on,
and then it kicked up in the rear and sent saddle and rider over its
head. So far as I had seen, no casualty had resulted, but it had set me
thinking. Given a beast with an India-rubber spine and no sense of
honor, I felt I would be helpless.

Tish came in just then and we confronted her.

[Illustration: "It's well enough for you, Tish Carberry, to talk about
gripping a horse with your knees"]

"Ponies!" I said bitterly. "They are horses, if I know a horse. And,
moreover, it's well enough for you, Tish Carberry, to talk about
gripping a horse with your knees. I'm not built that way, and you know
it. Besides, no knee grip will answer when a creature begins to act like
a cat in a fit."

Aggie here had a bright idea. She said that she had seen pictures of
pneumatic jackets to keep people from drowning, and that Mr. McKee, a
buyer at one of the stores at home, had taken one, fully inflated, when
he crossed to Paris for autumn suits.

"I would like to have one, Tish," she finished. "It would break the
force of a fall anyhow, even if it did puncture."

Tish, who was still dressed, went out to the curio shop in the lobby,
and returned with the sad news that there was nothing of the sort on
sale.

We were late in getting started the next morning owing partly to Aggie's
having put her riding-breeches on wrong, and being unable to sit down
when once in