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TWENTY MILES OF GRADE
193

"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.