bit. Shall we go back? Or try to overtake the others?"

"We can't do either one. I tell you we're simply stuck. Settled down and
gone to housekeeping. Beelzebub has finished. He won't take another
step. Fact. We've got to make the best of it. If that pony of yours was
as big as a decent calf we might ride double and leave this wretch to
starve and think it over at his leisure. I don't see why that girl gave
me such a creature. Let's get off and sit down on that rock and wait.
Something's bound to happen--sometime--if we live long enough. The
folks'll come back this same road, course."

He jumped to the ground and held out his hand to her but, for a moment,
she would not dismount; then as he coolly left her and walked to the
rock he had pointed out, she slipped from her saddle and followed him.
But she still held fast to her bridle rein and the pony offered no
resistance to the leading, though the big brute of the profane name
remained in the middle of the road, his forefeet pointed forward, his
hind ones backward, his whole attitude one of stubborn ugliness.

Leslie had reached a point where the ludicrous side of things appeared
and he remarked:

"Looks like the potato-horses I used to make when I was a kid, with
matches stuck in for legs. I wonder how long he'll stand there!"

Molly smiled faintly. At present there were no alarming sounds from the
forest and the boy's apparent indifference to their lonely situation
relieved her own fears.

"Well, it's an 'ill wind that blows nobody good,' you know. That Beelzy
thing is the toughest I ever rode. He's bumped me up and down till I
ache all over and this rock is actually soft in comparison. Here. I'll
put some of these big ferns for a cushion for you, and, after all, we'll
meet our folks just as soon by waiting as by going on. They must come
back, you know, sure as fate. This is the only road leads to
'Roderick's', I heard them say. Hello! Why--Beelzebub, good boy!"

A whim had seized the obstinate animal to approach his late rider and
fawn about his feet, nibbling the scant grass which grew there, as the
pony was already doing. In surprise at this change both Leslie and Molly
laughed and forgot, for the time, that they were in such a desolate
place at so late an hour.

The horse's action reminded Molly of an animal her father had once owned
and she began to tell stories about him; stories that the boy matched
with marvelous ones of his own. That some of these wer