Jacqueline could never ride a horse in that gown, or even sit sidewise in the saddle without hopelessly crumpling it, so they walked to the schoolhouse.

It was a slow progress, for she had to step lightly and carefully for fear of the slippers.

He took her bare arm and helped her; he would never have thought of it under ordinary conditions, but since she had put on this gown she was greatly changed to him, no longer the wild, free rider of the mountain-desert, but a defenseless, strangely weak being.

Her strength was now something other than the skill to ride hard and shoot straight and quick.
So they came to the schoolhouse and reached the long line of buggies, buckboards, and, most of all, saddled horses.

They crowded the horse-shed where the school children stabled their mounts in the winter weather.