“Oh, Ida!” cried Betty, breaking in suddenly, “do you know a little man, a crooked little man, named Hunchie Slattery?”

“My goodness, Betty!  Of course I remember Hunchie.  He worked in our stables.”

“He is with Ida Bellethorne, your pretty mare.  He takes care of her.  I talked with him at Mr. Bolter’s farm in Virginia.  The mare has a cough, and she was sent up here to get well.  And I heard Mr. Bolter himself tell Hunchie Slattery that he was to go with her.”

“Dear me, Betty! if I could find Hunchie, too, I’d feel better.  He might be able to tell me how it came that my mare was taken away and sold.  She really did belong to me, Mr. Gordon.  Mr. Jackwood, father’s administrator and my guardian, showed me the bill of sale making me Ida’s owner.  And even if I was a minor, wouldn’t that be a legal transfer paper?”

“I am not sure of the English law, my dear.  But it seems to me it would be in this country.  At any rate, that will be another thing to consult my lawyers about.  I understand Bolter paid somewhere near twenty thousand dollars for the mare.  It would be quite a fortune for you, Ida.”

“Indeed it would.  And the mare is worth all of four thousand pounds, I know.  Father always said there was no better mare in all England than Ida Bellethorne, and Aunt Ida might be proud to have such a horse named after her.”

“We are not far from the Candace Farm and perhaps we can get over there before we leave Mountain Camp,” Mr. Gordon said kindly.  “Then you can see your horse and the man from home.  I will get a statement from this jockey, or hostler, or whatever he is, and it may aid my lawyers in their search for the facts regarding the sale of the mare to Mr. Bolter.”

“Thank you very kindly, Mr. Gordon.”

The conference broke up and Betty ran out to join her mates on the lake.  Ida could not skate.  And, anyway, she preferred to sit indoors with Mrs. Canary.  Ida had the silk for another sweater in her bag, and that very hour she began to knit an over-blouse for Libbie, who had expressed a desire to possess one like those Betty and Bobby had bought.

The skating was fine, but the wind had risen again and this time it was a warm wind.  The snow grew soft on the surface, and when the party came up the bluff for luncheon it was not easy to walk and they sank deeply into the snow.

“This is a weather breeder,” said Mr. Canary, standing on the porch to greet them.  “I fear you young folks have come to Mountain Camp at the beginning of the roughest part of the winter.”

“Don’t apologize for your weather, Jack,” laughed Uncle Dick.  “If it grows too boisterous or unpleasant outside, these young people must find their fun indoors.”

And this is what they did for the next two days.  The temperature moderated a good deal, and then it rained.  Not a hard downpour, but a drifting “Scotch mist” that settled the snowdrifts and finally left them saturated with water.