Ruth Fielding In the Saddle OR COLLEGE GIRLS IN THE LAND OF GOLD

RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE




CHAPTER I—WHAT IS COMING


“Will you do it?” asked the eager, black-eyed girl sitting on the deep
window shelf.

“If Mr. Hammond says the synopsis of the picture is all right, I’ll go.”

“Oh, Ruthie! It would be just—just scrumptious!”

“_We’ll_ go, Helen—just as we agreed last week,” said her chum, laughing
happily.

“It will be great! great!” murmured Helen Cameron, her hands clasped in
blissful anticipation. “Right into the ‘wild and woolly.’ Dear me, Ruth
Fielding, we _do_ have the nicest times—you and I!”

“You needn’t overlook me,” grumbled the third and rather plump freshman
who occupied the most comfortable chair in the chums’ study in Dare
Hall.

“That would be rather—er—impossible, wouldn’t it, Heavy?” suggested
Helen Cameron, rolling her black eyes.

Jennie Stone made a face like a street gamin, but otherwise ignored
Helen’s cruel suggestion. “I’d rather register joy, too——Oh, yes, I’m
going with you; have written home about it. Have to tell Aunt Kate
ahead, you know. Yes, I’d register joy, if it weren’t for one thing that
I see looming before us.”

“What’s that, honey?” asked Ruth.

“The horseback ride from Yucca into the Hualapai Range seems like a
doubtful equation to me.”

“Don’t you mean ‘doubtful equestrianism’?” put in the black-eyed girl
with a chuckle.

“Perhaps I do,” sighed Jennie. “You know, I’m a regular sailor on
horseback.”

“You should have taken it up when we were all at Silver Ranch with Ann
Hicks,” Ruth said.

“Oh, say not so!” begged Jennie Stone lugubriously. “What I should have
done in the past has nothing to do with this coming summer. I groan to
think of what I shall have to endure.”

“Who will do the groaning for the horse that has to carry you, Heavy?”
interposed the irrepressible Helen, giving her the old nickname that
Jennie Stone now scarcely deserved.

“Never mind. Let the horse do his own worrying,” was the placid reply.
The temper of the well nourished girl was not easily ruffled.

“Why, Jennie, _think!_” ejaculated Helen, suddenly turned brisk and
springing down from the window seat. “It will be just the jaunt for you.
The physical culturists claim there is nothing so good for reducing
flesh and helping one’s poor, sluggish liver as horseback riding.”

“Say!” drawled the other girl, her nose tilted at a scornful angle,
“those people say a lot more than their prayers—believe me! Most
physical culturists have never ridden any kind of horse in their lives
but a hobbyhorse—and they still ride _that_ when they are senile.”

Ruth applauded. “A Daniel come to judgment!” she cried.

“Huh!” sniffed Jennie, suspiciously. “What does that mean?”

“I—I don’t just know myself,” confessed Ruth. “But it sounds good—and
Dr. Milroth used it this morning in chapel, so it must be all right.”

“Anything that our revered dean says goes big with me, I confess,” said
Jennie. “Oh, girls! isn’t she just a dear?”

“And hasn’t Ardmore been just the delightsomest place for nine months?”
cried Helen.

“Even better than Briarwood,” agreed Ruth.

“That sounds almost sacrilegious,” Helen observed. “I don’t know about
any place being finer than old Briarwood.”

“There’s Ann!” cried Ruth in a tone that made both the others jump.

“Where? Where?” demanded Helen, whirling about to look out of the window
again. The window gave a broad view of the lower slope of College Hill
and the expanse of Lake Remona. Dusk was just dropping, for the time was
after dinner; but objects were still to be clearly observed. “Where’s
Jane Ann Hicks?”

“Just completing her full course at Briarwood Hall,” Ruth explained
demurely. “She will go to Montana, of course. But if I write her I know
she’ll join us at Yucca just for the fun of the ride.”