d helped the gray horse to its feet. The animal was more
frightened than hurt, although its legs were scratched some and it favored
one fore foot when Bob walked it about.

"Dear me!" cried Betty, coming closer. "Poor old Jim! Is he hurt much,
Bob?"

"I don't believe so," her friend replied.

"Can we get him up the bank?"

"I won't try that if there is any outlet to this ravine--and there must
be, of course. Say! do you hear that silly girl?"

"Who? Libbie?" Betty began to giggle. "She is going to make a hero of you,
Bob, whether you want to be or not. And you are----"

"Now, don't you begin," growled Bob.

"I never saw such a modest fellow," laughed Betty, giving his free hand a
little squeeze.

"Huh! Libbie will want to put a laurel wreath on my brow if I climb up
there. See! There is a bunch of laurels right over there--those
glossy-leaved, runty sort of trees. Not for me! I am going to lead Jim out
ahead, and you climb up, if you want to, and come along with the rest of
the bunch. Ride my horse, if you will, Betty."

"So you'd run away from a girl!" scoffed Betty, but laughing. "You are no
hero, Bob Henderson."

"Sure I'm not," he agreed cheerfully. "And I'd run away from a girl like
Libbie any day. I wonder how Timothy Derby stands for her. But he's almost
as mushy as a soft pumpkin!"

With this disrespectful observation Bob started off with the gray horse
and Betty scrambled up the bank down which she had plunged so heedlessly.

Bobby was one of those who had dismounted at the brink of the ravine, and
she held out a brown hand to Betty as the latter scrambled up the last
yard or two of the steep bank and helped her to a secure footing.

"Are you all right, Betty dear?" she cried.

"No. One side of me is left," laughed Betty. "Wasn't that some slide?"

"Now, don't try to make out that you did it on purpose!" exclaimed Esther,
the youngest Littell sister.

"It was too lovely for anything," sighed Libbie.

"I'm glad you think so," said Betty. "Oh! you mean what Bob did. I see. Of
course he is lovely--always has been. But don't tell him so, for it
utterly spoils boys if you praise them--doesn't it Bobby?"

"Of course it does," agreed Betty's particular chum, whose real name,
Roberta, was seldom used even by her parents.

"I like that!" chorused the Tucker twins. "Wait till we tell Bob, Betty,"
added Tommy Tucker, shaking his head.

"If you try to slide downhill on horseback again, we'll all jus