Saddlebags Read Online Free

doing.
    Lisa turned and saw Stevie’s parents mounting up. Mr. Lake was riding a mare named Melody. Lisa chuckled to herself. After hearing him sing cowboy songs all day, she thought Melody seemed like the perfect mount. Mrs. Lake was on a gray named Shoofly.
    “We’d better hurry up,” Stevie joked, “or our parents will leave us in the dust.”
    As Stevie and Lisa headed back into the barn to collect their own horses, Carole busily adjusted her father’s stirrups. “Now, Dad, you don’t want your stirrups as short as they are in English riding, and you put your foot a little farther in.” She picked up her father’s foot and placed it just right in the big wooden stirrup.
    “Hold your reins in your right hand. You can loosen up on them, that’s ri—”
    “Carole, honey, I’m just fine. Now, will you go get your horse?”
    Carole looked up at Colonel Hanson and sighed.There he sat, atop Yellowbird, a big Palomino. He looked okay—except for the hat. On his head was a deluxe Western riding hat, tall and black, with silver buckles around its leather strap, and white and black feathers. The first time she’d laid eyes on it had been on the way to the airport, and she’d wanted to crawl under the backseat of the Lakes’ station wagon.
    “I still don’t know about that hat, Dad,” she told him now. “All it needs is a few rhinestones, and you’d look like the dude of the century!”
    Colonel Hanson laughed good-naturedly at his daughter. “You’re just jealous,” he said. “You’ve got only that old beat-up hat with nothing on it. Now, why don’t you go and get your horse and let’s get going.”
    The girls got their horses and mounted up. From previous visits to the Bar None, they each had favorite mounts. Carole always rode Berry, a strawberry roan; Lisa rode a bay mare, Chocolate; and Stevie was on Stewball, a skewbald horse with a lot of personality.
    They walked their horses over to a spot just outside the corral, where their parents were waiting.
    Mr. Lake spoke up. “You know, you don’t need to pamper us, girls. We haven’t watched all those showsand lessons at Pine Hollow without picking up a thing or two.”
    “We’re not as run-down as you think we are,” Carole’s father added with a wink at his daughter.
    Mrs. Atwood adjusted her hat. “You’re treating us like a bunch of old bags!”
    “That’s right,” chimed in Stevie’s mother. “And if we’re bags, we must really be
saddlebags
!”
    Everybody laughed.
    “Our very own nickname,” said Mrs. Atwood. “Maybe we should start our own club!”
    The parents chuckled, the kids groaned, and they all started off.
    The girls and John took the parents on an easy trail ride along a few of the Bar None’s hundreds of acres. They led them out beyond the compound of buildings and into the open fields that sprawled behind the ranch. All around them, huge, snowcapped peaks jutted into the sky. The pastures were lined with grass and scrub and small trees here and there. At their edges, pine forests created a layer of dark green.
    There was no other trail-riding like this in the world, Lisa thought. It was beautiful here.
    They walked at first, so their parents could enjoy theview. Then Carole looked back and assessed that everyone looked pretty comfortable, so she brought Berry to a slow trot.
    Lisa watched to see what her parents would do. Sure enough, her mother brought her feet about a foot away from Spot’s sides and then let them bang against him with a smack of a kick. The horse arched his neck and started to lope. But he was a trail horse, used to following the leader, so he quickly slowed to a trot.
    It’s a good thing Spot’s a follower, thought Lisa. Otherwise, with a kick like that, he’d be off to the other side of the mountain.
    Mrs. Atwood had lost her stirrups by this time and was bouncing precariously in the saddle. “Whoa, whoa,” she said as she pulled hard on the reins.
    “Mom,” said Lisa, circling around