hed self from the
store, the boys lingering to pay the bill.

She had remounted Apache when they joined her, Archie carrying the
letters which he stuffed viciously into the mail-bag strapped to his
saddle. Then the two boys sprang upon their waiting horses. As they rode
in silence Beverly glanced down at her khaki riding skirt and at Apache's
mud-splashed body, and the next moment had stopped short, exclaiming:

"Look at us, and I promised mother I wouldn't race!"

"You did!" exclaimed the boys in duet.

"I sure did," she repeated with a solemn nod.

This was too much for her companions and the woodland bordering the road
echoed to their shouts. When they had regained some self-control Athol
asked:

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Do? I'm going to stop at the branch and scrub some of this mud off
Apache and myself, for if we show up like this mother will think I've
been acting ten times worse that I really have, though goodness knows
it's bad enough as it is. I didn't mean to break my promise, but I
couldn't let you boys put it all over me like you did and not get back at
you. Now get out of the way while I clean up, and maybe you could do a
little on your own accounts and not suffer for it either. 'Snowdrift!' He
looks exactly like one after a spring thaw."

The boys glanced at the beautiful white horse and then at each other. The
ensuing fifteen minutes were spent in the vigorous grooming of their
steeds, Beverly scrubbing Apache as energetically as Archie and Athol did
Royal and Snowdrift. Flat sticks served as scrapers and bunches of dry
grass for cloths. When the animals looked a little less like animated mud
pies Beverly turned her attention to her riding skirt. To restore that to
its pristine freshness might have daunted a professional scourer. The
more she rubbed and scrubbed the worse the result and finally, when she
was a sight from alternate streaks of mud and wet splotches, she sprang
upon the startled Apache crying:

"Come along home quick! If I've got to face the music the quicker it's
done the better," and was off down the road in a fair way to being as
muddy when she reached Woodbine as she was when she began her cleansing
processes at the branch, while up in one of the dormer windows of the big
house her mother stood smiling to herself. It was one of the rare
occasions when she had occasion to go to that room for some stored away
winter clothing against Beverly's pending departure