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She was dreadfully ashamed of the way the Saskatchewan weather was behaving after all her boasting. She was thin at the best of times, but now she grew positively scraggy with the worry of it. I am afraid I took an unholy delight in teasing her, and abused the western weather even more than was necessary.

Jim Nash–the lank youth who was hired to look after the place during Uncle Kenneth’s absence on a prolonged threshing expedition–had brought some mail. Kate’s share was a letter, postmarked Bothwell, a rising little town about one hundred and twenty miles from Arrow Creek. Kate had several friends there, and one of our plans had been to visit Bothwell and spend a week with them. We had meant to drive, of course, since there was no other way of getting there, and equally of course the plan had been abandoned because of the wet weather.

“Mother,” exclaimed Kate, “Mary Taylor is going to be married in a fortnight’s time! She wants Phil and me to go up to Bothwell for the wedding.”

“What a pity you can’t go,” remarked Aunt Jennie placidly. Aunt Jennie was always a placid little soul, with a most enviable knack of taking everything easy. Nothing ever worried her greatly, and when she had decided that a thing was inevitable it did not worry her at all.

“But I am going,” cried Kate. “I will go–I must go. I positively cannot let Mary Taylor–my own beloved Molly–go and perpetrate matrimony without my being on hand to see it. Yes, I’m going–and if Phil has a spark of the old Blair pioneer spirit in her, she’ll go too.”

“Of course I’ll go if you go,” I said.

Aunt Jennie did not think we were in earnest, so she merely laughed at first, and said, “How do you propose to go? Fly–or swim?”

“We’ll drive, as usual,” said Kate calmly. “I’d feel more at home in that way of locomotion. We’ll borrow Jim Nash’s father’s democrat, and take the ponies. We’ll put on old clothes, raincoats, rubber caps and boots, and we’ll start tomorrow. In an ordinary time we could easily do it in six days or less, but this fall we’ll probably need ten or twelve.”

“You don’t really mean to go, Kate!” said Aunt Jennie, beginning to perceive that Kate did mean it.

“I do,” said Kate, in a convincing tone.

Aunt Jennie felt a little worried–as much as she could feel worried over anything–and she tried her best to dissuade Kate, although she plainly did not have much hope of doing so, having had enough experience with her determined daughter to realize that when Kate said she was going to do a thing she did it. It was rather funny to listen to the ensuing dialogue.

“Kate, you can’t do it. It’s a crazy idea! The road is one hundred and twenty miles long.”

“I’ve driven it twice, Mother.”

“Yes, but not in such a wet year. The trail is impassable in places.”

“Oh, there are always plenty of dry spots to be found if you only look hard for them.”

“But you don’t know where to look for them, and goodness knows what you’ll get into while you are looking.”

“We’ll call at the M.P. barracks and get an Indian to guide us. Indians always know the dry spots.”

“The stage driver has decided not to make another trip till the October frosts set in.”

“But he always has such a heavy load. It will be quite different with us, you must remember. We’ll travel light–just our provisions and a valise containing our wedding garments.”

“What will you do if you get mired twenty miles from a human being?”

“But we won’t. I’m a good driver and I haven’t nerves–but I have nerve. Besides, you forget that we’ll have an Indian guide with us.”

“There was a company of Hudson Bay freighters ambushed and killed along that very trail by Blackfoot Indians in 1839,” said Aunt Jennie dolefully.

“Fifty years ago! Their ghosts must have ceased to haunt it by this time,” said Kate flippantly.