ine and did not know how
to close the throttle or reverse the engine. Dear me!"

She might well say "dear me." Uncle Dick would surely have been much
worried for her safety if he could know what she was doing. Betty by no
means appreciated in full her danger.

Indeed, she scarcely thought of danger. Ida Bellethorne seemed as
sure-footed as a chamois. Her calks threw bits of ice-crust behind her,
and she never slipped nor slid. There was nobody on the road. There was
not even the mark of a sledge, although along the ditch were the shuffling
prints of snowshoes. Some pedestrian had gone this way in the early
morning.

This was not the road by which Betty and her friends had been transported
by Mr. Jaroth. There was not even a hut like Bill Kedders' beside it. In
places the thick woods verged right on the track on either side and in
these tunnels it seemed to be already dusk.

It flashed into Betty's mind that there might be savage animals in these
thick woods. Bears, and wild cats, and perhaps even the larger Canadian
lynx, might be hovering in the dark wood. It would not be pleasant to have
one of those animals spring out at one, perhaps from an overhanging limb,
as the little mare and her rider dashed beneath!

"Just the same," the girl thought, "at the pace Ida Bellethorne is
carrying me, such wild animals couldn't jump quick enough to catch me.
Guess I needn't be afraid of them."

There were perils in her path--most unexpected perils. Betty would never
have even dreamed of what really threatened her. For fifteen minutes Ida
Bellethorne galloped on and the girl knew she must have come a third of
the way to Dr. Pevy's office.

The mare's first exuberance passed. Of her own volition she drew down to a
canter. Her speed still seemed almost phenominal to the girl riding her,
but Betty began to feel more secure in the saddle.

They reached the top of a steep hill. The hedge of tall pines and
underbrush drew closer in on either side. The road was very narrow. As
the mare started down the incline it seemed as though they were going into
a long and steep chute.

Before this Betty had noted the ice-hung telephone and telegraph wires
strung beside the road. Sheeted in the frozen rain and snow the heavy
wires had dragged many of the poles askew. Here and there a wire was
broken.

It never entered the girl's mind that there was danger in those wires.
And, perhaps, in most of them there was not. But across this ravine i