"We have twenty-five miles to make," Wallie hinted.
"Our luggage? How about that?" inquired Mr. Stott.
"It will follow." Wallie opened the stage-coach door as a further hint.
"I want to get some snap-shots of the town," said Mr. Penrose, who had his camera and a pair of field-glasses slung over his shoulder.
"What an experience this will be to write home!" gushed Miss Gaskett. "Let's stop at the office and mail post-cards."
Pinkey leaned over the side and winked at Wallie, who urged uneasily: "We must start. Twenty-five miles is a good distance to make before dark."
"Switzerland has nothing to surpass this view!" declared Mr. Stott, who had never been in Switzerland.
Everyone took a leisurely survey of the mountains.
"And the air is very like that of the Scotch moors." No one ever would have suspected from his positive tone that Mr. Stott never had been in Scotland, either.
"I am sorry to insist," said Wallie in response to another significant look from Pinkey, "but we really will have to hurry."
Thus urged, they proceeded to clamber in, except Miss Gertie Eyester, who was patting the roan on the nose.
"Dear 'ittie horsey!"
"'Ittie horse eats human flesh, you'd better not git too close," said Pinkey.
Miss Eyester looked admiringly at Pinkey in his red shirt and declared with an arch glance: "You're so droll, Mr. Fripp!"
Since Mr. Fripp thought something of the sort himself he did not contradict her, but told himself that she was "not so bad--for a dude."
"I hope the horses are perfectly safe, because my heart isn't good, and when I'm frightened it goes bad and my lips get just as b-l-u-e!"
"They look all right now," said Pinkey, after giving them his careful attention.
Miss Eyester observed wistfully: "I hope I will get well and strong out here."
"If you'd go out in a cow-camp fer a couple of months it would do you a world of good," Pinkey advised her. "You'd fatten up."
Mr. Budlong, who had gotten in the coach, got out again to inquire of Pinkey if he was sure the horses were perfectly gentle.
"I'd trust my own step-mother behind 'em anywhere."
Mr. Budlong, who had had a step-mother, intimated that that was not convincing proof, and returned to the coach declaring that he had no fears for himself, but his wife was nervous.
To show his contempt of danger, Mr. Stott said: "Poof!"
Wallie, having closed the door, climbed up beside Pinkey, who unlocked the brake.
"I always feel helpless shut inside a vehicle," declared Mr. Budlong.
Mr. Stott again said recklessly: "Poof!"
Just as he said "poof!", the leaders rose on their hind legs. Mr. Tucker, who rose with them, clung valiantly to their bits and dangled there. One of the wheel horses laid down and the other tried to climb over the back of the leader in front of him, while the bystanders scattered.