One rode sidewise, both looked absurdly small, and even that far away the boy knew them for strangers. He did not call Mavis's attention to them--he had no need--for when he turned, her face showed that she too had seen them, and she was already moving forward to go with him down the spur. Once or twice, as they went down, each glimpsed the coming "furriners" dimly through the trees; they hurried that they might not miss the passing, and on a high bank above the river road they stopped, standing side by side, the eyes of both fixed on the arched opening of the trees through which the strangers must first come into sight. A ringing laugh from the green depths heralded their coming, and then in the archway were framed a boy and a girl and two ponies--all from another world. The two watchers stared silently--the boy noting that the other boy wore a cap and long stockings, the girl that a strange hat hung down the back of the other girl's head--stared with widening eyes at a sight that was never for them before. And then the strangers saw them--the boy with his bow and arrow, the girl with a fishing-pole--and simultaneously pulled their ponies in before the halting gaze that was levelled at them from the grassy bank. Then they all looked at one another until boy's eyes rested on boy's eyes for question and answer, and the stranger lad's face flashed with quick humor. "Were you looking for us?" he asked, for just so it seemed to him, and the little mountaineer nodded. "Yes," he said gravely. The stranger boy laughed. "What can we do for you?" Now, little Jason had answered honestly and literally, and he saw now that he was being trifled with. "A feller what wears gal's stockings can't do nothin' fer me," he said coolly. Instantly the other lad made as though he would jump from his pony, but a cry of protest stopped him, and for a moment he glared his hot resentment of the insult; then he dug his heels into his pony's sides. "Come on, Marjorie," he said, and with dignity the two little "furriners" rode on, never looking back even when they passed over the hill. "He didn't mean nothin'," said Mavis, "an' you oughtn't--" Jason turned on her in a fury. "I seed you a-lookin' at him!" "'Tain't so! I seed you a-lookin' at HER!" she retorted, but her eyes fell before his accusing gaze, and she began worming a bare toe into the sand. "Air ye goin' home now?" she asked, presently. "No," he said shortly, "I'm a-goin' atter him. You go on home." The boy started up the hill, and in a moment the girl was trotting after him. He turned when he heard the patter of her feet. "Huh!" he grunted contemptuously, and kept on. At the top of the hill he saw several men on horseback in the bend of the road below, and he turned into the bushes.