“Gee!” exclaimed Teddy, “if we got old Bobsky started down that hill he’d never stop till he got to the bottom.  How far do you say it is to the station, Mr. Canary?”

“It is quite twenty miles down grade.  Of course there are several places where the road is level—­or was level before the snow fell.  But once started there would not be many places where you would have to get out and push,” and the gentleman laughed.

Betty’s mind was fixed upon her argument.  Her face still glowed and she scarcely tasted her breakfast.

“I believe we can do it,” she murmured.

“What under the sun do you mean, Betty?” asked Louise.

“I hope it is something nice we can do,” said Libbie dreamily.  “I looked out the window and it is all like fairyland—­isn’t it, Timothy?”

“Uh-huh!” said Timothy Derby, his mouth rather full at the moment.  “It is the most beautiful sight I ever saw.  Will you please pass me another muffin?”

But Bob gave Betty his undivided attention.  He asked: 

“What do you believe we can do, Betty?”

“Make use of Mr. Canary’s pung.”

“Cricky!  What will draw it?  Where is the span of noble steeds to be found?  Old Bobsky would break his neck.”

“One horse.  One wonderful horse, Bob!” cried Betty clapping her hands suddenly.  “I am sure I’m right.  Uncle Dick!”

“What do you mean, Betty?” cried Bobby, shaking her.  “What horse?”

“Gravitation,” announced Betty, her eyes shining.  “That’s his name.”

“Great goodness!” gasped Bob.  “I see a light.  But Betty, how’d we steer it?”

“The front runners are attached to the tongue.  Tie ropes to the tongue and steer it that way,” Betty said, so eagerly that her words tumbled over each other.  “Can’t we do it, Uncle Dick?  We’ll all pile into the pung, with a lot of straw to keep us warm, and just slide down the hills to the railroad station.  What say?”

For a while there was a good deal said by all present.  Mr. and Mrs. Canary at first scouted the reasonableness of the idea.  But Mr. Gordon, being an engineer and, as Bob said, “up to all such problems,” considered Betty’s suggestion carefully.

In the first place the need was serious.  Especially for the much troubled Ida.  If she could not reach the dock on New York’s water-front by eleven o’clock the next morning, her aunt would doubtless sail on the San Salvador, and then there was no knowing when the English girl would be able to find her only living relative.

The party had ridden over the mountain road in coming to Mountain Camp, and Uncle Dick remembered the course pretty well.  Although it was a continual grade, as one might say, it was an easy grade.  And there were few turns in the road.

Drifted with snow as it was, and that snow crusted, the idea of coasting all the way to the railroad station did not seem so wild a thought.  The road was fenced for most of the way on both sides.  And over those fences the drifts rose smoothly, making almost a trough of the road.