.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 44576
   :PG.Title: The Girls of Silver Spur Ranch
   :PG.Released: 2014-01-03
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Grace MacGowan Cooke
   :DC.Creator: Anne McQueen
   :DC.Title: The Girls of Silver Spur Ranch
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1913
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE GIRLS OF SILVER SPUR RANCH
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   *THE GIRLS*
   *OF*
   *SILVER SPUR RANCH*

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      BY

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      GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE

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      AND

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      ANNE MCQUEEN

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      THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY
      *Chicago*

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     MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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   LIST OF CHAPTERS

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   I.  `A Question of Names`_
   II.  `Roy Rides to Silver Spur`_
   III.  `A Package and a Leather-Brown Phaeton`_
   IV.  `A Jewel of Great Price`_
   V.  `The Silver Spur Bakery`_
   VI.  `A Shiny Black Box`_
   VII.  `The Wire Cutter`_
   VIII.  `A Partner of the Sun`_
   IX.  `The Rose by Another Name`_

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.. _`A Question of Names`:

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   *THE GIRLS OF*
   *SILVER SPUR RANCH*

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   CHAPTER I

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   A Question of Names

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The girls of Silver Spur ranch were all
very busy helping Mary, the eldest, with
her wedding sewing.  Silver Spur was rather
a pretentious name for John Spooner's little
Texas cattle-farm, but Elizabeth, the second
daughter, who had an ear attuned to sweet
sounds, had chosen it; as a further
confirmation of the fact she had covered an
old spur with silver-leaf and hung it over
the doorway.  The neighboring ranchers
had laughed, at first, and old Jonah Bean,
the one cowboy left in charge of the small
Spooner herd, always sniffed scornfully when
he had occasion to mention the name of his
ranch, declaring that The Tin Spoon would
suit it much better.  However, in time
everybody became used to it, and Silver
Spur the ranch remained--somehow
Elizabeth always had her own way.

This young lady sat by the window in the
little living-room where they were all at work,
and carefully embroidered a big and
corpulent "B" on a sofa-pillow for Mary, who
was to marry, in a few days, a young man
from another state who owned the
euphonious name of Bellamy--a name
Elizabeth openly envied him.

"I do think Spooner is such a horrid,
commonplace sort of name," she declared
with emphatic disapproval.  "Aren't you
glad you'll soon be rid of it, Mary?"

"Um-m," murmured Mary, paying scant
heed to Elizabeth's query; she was hemming
a ruffle to trim the little muslin frock which
was the last unfinished garment of her
trousseau, and she was too busy for argument.

"As if," continued Elizabeth, "the name
wasn't odious enough, father must needs go
and choose a *spoon* for his brand!  And he
might so easily have made it a *fleur-de-lys*--fairly
rubbing it in, as if it was something to
be proud of!"

Just then Mary, finding that the machine
needle kept jabbing in one place, looked
about for a cause, and perceived Elizabeth
tranquilly rocking upon one of the
unhemmed breadths of her ruffle.

"I'll be much obliged if you'll take your
chair off my ruffle, Saint Elizabeth," she
laughed, tugging at the crumpled cloth,
"and just don't worry over the name--try
and live up to your looks."

Elizabeth blushed a little as she stooped
to disentangle the cloth from her rocker;
she was a very handsome girl, altogether
unlike her sisters, who were all rather short
and dark, and plump looking, Cousin
Hannah Pratt declared, as much alike as
biscuits cut out of the same batch of dough.
Elizabeth was about sixteen, tall and fair
and slim, with large, serious blue eyes and
long, thick blond hair, which she wore
plaited in the form of a coronet or halo about
her head--privately, she much preferred
the halo, as best befitting the character of
her favorite heroine, Saint Elizabeth, a
canonized queen whom she desired to
resemble in looks and deportment.

"One would have to be a saint to bear
with the name of Spooner," she said, rather
crossly, as she tossed Mary her ruffle.

Cousin Hannah Pratt, rocking in the
biggest chair, which she filled to
overflowing, lifted her eyes from her work and
regarded Elizabeth meditatively.  "How'd
you like to swap it for Mudd, Libby?" she
asked tranquilly.

Elizabeth shuddered--she hated to be
called Libby, it was so commonplace; and
Cousin Hannah persisted in calling her that
when she knew how it annoyed her.
Elizabeth was thankful that Cousin Hannah--who
kept a boarding-house in Emerald, the
near-by village, and had kindly come over
to help with the wedding--was only
kin-in-law, which was bad enough; to have such
an uncultured person for a blood relation
would have been worse.

"Mudd!  O, poor Elizabeth!" giggled
Ruth, the third of the Spooner sisters, a
merry-hearted girl of fifteen, who looked
on all the world with mirthful eyes.  "Cousin
Hannah, what made you think of such an
*awful* name?"

"Don't be so noisy, Ruth," cautioned
Mary, with what seemed unnecessary
severity.  "Mother's neuralgia is bad to day.
You can hear every sound right through in
her room.  Cousin Hannah, won't you please
make her a cup of tea?  I think it would
do her good; you make such nice tea."

"Sure and certain!" agreed Cousin
Hannah, heartily.  Rising ponderously from
her chair, she moved on heavy tiptoes out
into the kitchen, the thin boards creaking
as she walked.

"I might also remark that a person would
have to be a saint to bear with Cousin
Hannah," said Elizabeth, "she doesn't intend
it, maybe, but she does rile me so!"

"I don't see why anybody would want
to be a saint; I'd heap rather be a knight,"
spoke up little Harvie, nicknamed by her
family "the Babe."  She lay curled up on
a lounge in the corner, ostensibly pulling out
bastings, but really reading a worn old copy
of Ivanhoe, which was the book of her
heart.  There were no children living near
the lonely little ranch, and the Babe, who
was only ten, solaced herself with the
company of heroes and heroines of romance--much
preferring the heroes.

"I'd rather be 'most anything than a
'mover'," declared Elizabeth, emphatically.
"And if you want to know the reason, just
look out of the window and watch this
procession coming up from the road."

Ruth and the Babe ran to the window;
Mary, leaving her machine, slipped quietly
out of the room to see about her mother.
Also Mary desired to have a little private
talk with Cousin Hannah.

It was a pitifully ludicrous spectacle that
the girls beheld.  Up the driveway leading
to the house came a dreary procession of
those unfortunates known in western
parlance as "movers," family tramps who
follow the harvests in hope of getting a little
work in the fields; always moving on when
the crops are gathered, or planted, as the
case may be--movers never became dwellers
in any local territory.

These movers were, in appearance, even
more wretched than usual.  In a little
covered cart drawn by a diminutive donkey,
sat a pale woman with a baby in her arms,
and two small and pallid children crouching
beside her.  Behind the cart the father of
the family pushed valiantly, in a kindly
endeavor to help along the donkey, while
just ahead of that overburdened animal
walked a small boy, holding, as further
inducement, an alluring ear of corn just out
of reach of the donkey's nose.  Certainly
the family justified Elizabeth's declaration
that 'most anything was preferable to being
a mover!

Ruth and Elizabeth both laughed at the
comical procession, but the Babe's eyes
were full of pity.  "The poor things are
coming up for water," she said sorrowfully.
"Father always let them get water at our
well--I'll go show them the way."  And
she ran out to meet the movers and show
them the well at the back of the house,
where they filled their water-jugs and
quenched the thirst of the patient and
unsatisfied donkey.

"I wish to goodness Father never had
gone to Cuba," sighed Ruth, as she turned
from the window to take up her button-holes,
"it is so awfully lonesome without him."

"I think it was splendid," said Elizabeth,
with shining eyes, "to be among the very
first of the volunteers.  And maybe he'll
do some deed of daring and be made an
officer.  Think how nice it will be to say,
when the war is over, that our father figures
in history--maybe as one of the foremost
heroes of the Spanish-American war."

"You're always dreaming of things that
never happen, Elizabeth," scoffed practical
Ruth.  "Of course he won't be made a big
officer.  If he comes back just a plain
Captain I'll be mighty glad."

"O, well, the world's greatest men and
women have always been dreamers,"
asserted Elizabeth, cheerfully, "I can't help
being born different from the rest of you,
can I?"

"H'm, I reckon not--but you can start
a fire in the stove.  People must eat, no
matter how great they are.  It's your time
to get supper."

"O, dear, it's bad to be born poor!" sighed
Elizabeth, as she arose reluctantly.
"Especially when there's a longing within you
to do perfectly fine things, and not mere
drudgery.  I wish I were a princess--it
seems to me I was born to rule.  I'm sure
I would be a wise and capable sovereign.
Well, even queens stoop to minister to the
lowly, like Saint Elizabeth, so *I'll* go get
supper for the Spooners!"

And with her head in the clouds, the
throneless queen marched majestically
kitchenward, to engage in the humble
occupation of cooking supper for her family.

Voices from her mother's closed door
reached her ears as she passed.  Elizabeth
would have scorned eavesdropping, but--the
ranch being located in the prairie region
of Texas, where lumber is so scarce that
just as little as possible is used in building,
and the walls being merely board partitions,
she could not help hearing Cousin Hannah's
voice, always strident, rising above her
mother's and Mary's lower tones.

"Fiddle-diddle!  What's the use of mincin'
matters anyway?  She's bound to know,
sooner or later--ought to know without--tellin',
if she had a grain o' common sense.
Ain't a single, solitary thing about her
favors the rest of you all."

The words sounded very clearly in
Elizabeth's startled ears, arousing a train of
troubled thoughts in her mind, as she moved
mechanically about the kitchen.  She felt
quite certain that they were talking about
her, and that Cousin Hannah wanted to
tell her something that Mrs. Spooner and
Mary didn't want known.

"I wonder what it can be," pondered
Elizabeth, as she slowly stirred the hominy
pot.  "Whether Cousin Hannah thinks
so or not, I've always known I wasn't like
the rest."

This was quite true; Elizabeth, though
she dearly loved the parents and sisters who
had always, Cousin Hannah declared,
spoiled her, yet could not help feeling that
she was, mentally and physically superior to
them, "made of finer clay," she would have
put it.  People often remarked on this lack
of resemblance to the others, and when they
did so in Mrs. Spooner's presence she always
hastily changed the subject.  Elizabeth
had often wondered why.  Somehow there
seemed always to have been a mystery
surrounding her--something that, if
explained, would prove very thrilling indeed.

Occupied with these thoughts, she moved
from cupboard to table, and from table to
fire, preparing the evening meal with deft
skill, for anything Elizabeth Spooner did
she did a little better than other people.

Outside the window stretched a vast
brown-green plain, bounded by a horizon
line like a ring.  There was monotony in the
prospect, and yet a curious sense of
adventure and romance, as there is about the
sea.  Elizabeth delighted in the mystic
beauty of the prairie, yet to-day her fine
eyes studied the level unseeingly as she
glanced through the window, looking to see
if Jonah Bean was in sight; the glories of
sunset that flooded the plain passed almost
unnoticed.  She was thinking too earnestly
on her own problem to observe the outside
world.

"If I were by chance adopted, I certainly
have a right to know who I am," Elizabeth
pondered, as she set the table beautifully,
with certain artistic touches that the
clumsier hands of the other girls somehow could
never manage.  "It won't make any
difference in my feelings for father and mother
and the girls if I should happen to be born
in a higher station of life than
theirs--though I can easily see how poor mother
could think it might; I trust I'm above
being snobbish--"  Elizabeth's eyes began
to glow with a resolute purpose--"I'm
going to find out, that's what!  I'll make Cousin
Hannah tell me.  She's so big it's awful to
sleep with her, and she snores like thunder.
Mary knows how bad it is, and how I hate
it, that's the reason she made me sleep with
Ruth, when one of us had to give up our
place.  To-night I'll make Mary take the
Babe's place with Mother, who might need
her in the night, and I'll sleep with Cousin
Hannah--and find out what she knows
about me!"

Jonah Bean came stamping up the steps
just then to wash up for supper at the
water-shelf just outside the kitchen door;
informing anybody who chose to listen that he was
mighty tired--there was two men's work to
do on the Spooner ranch, anyhow, and he
was gittin' old, same's other folks.  Glancing
in at the open door he observed who was
the cook.

"Humph!  So it's your night for gittin'
supper?  Well, I hope the truck'll taste as
fancy as that air table looks."

"Sure, Jonah," answered Elizabeth,
critically observing the effect of her handiwork.
"If you'll just step outside and get me a
big bunch of those yellow cactus-blooms to
put in this brown pitcher it'll be perfect,
and I'll see that you get a big painted cup
full of coffee."

"Never could see no use in weeds--full o'
stickers at that," grumbled Jonah, as he
turned to go out for the flowers that were
growing on the great cactus in the fence
corner.  "Hope that air coffee'll be strong
and hot, though."

The coffee was strong and hot, and the
hominy was white and well-cooked; the
bacon was brown and crisp and the biscuits
light as feathers.  Elizabeth dished the
supper in the flowered dishes kept for
company, because she could not bear the heavy
earthenware they used every day.  She
filled the squatty brown pitcher with the
big bunch of golden blooms old Jonah bore
gingerly, careful of the thorns, and then
lighted the lamp with the red shade.  Really
they didn't need a lamp, but the glow from
the red shade was so pretty that she lighted
it anyway--she so loved beautiful things.

She arranged her mother's tray daintily,
laying a cactus-bloom, freed of its thorns,
beside the plate--somehow she felt as if she
was preparing for some extra occasion.

"I declare Libby always cooks like she
was fixin' for company," said Cousin
Hannah, admiringly, as she sat at the gracefully
arranged table.  "Oughter keep boarders,
and she wouldn't find no time for extra
kinks."

Elizabeth shuddered a little as she poured
Jonah's coffee in the biggest cup, with the
painted motto on it--how she would hate
to do such a sordid thing as keep boarders!

But she smiled very affably on Cousin
Hannah, and asked if she wouldn't tell her
how to make spice cake--she always noticed
that Cousin Hannah's cake was so good.
She wished to get the recipe to write in her
scrap-book.

"Shore and certain," said Cousin Hannah,
amiably, pleased at Elizabeth's praise, "I'll
be glad to write it off.  You're 'bout as
good a cook as Ruth, though I always did
say she was the born cook o' the family--you
seemin' to be a master hand at managin'."

That she was indeed a master hand at the
art, Elizabeth proved that night, when with
a few energetic commands, she sent Mary
obediently to her mother's room, to take
the Babe's place, who in turn was put to
sleep with Ruth.

"Why in the world don't you let Ruth
sleep with Cousin Hannah?" argued Mary,
"you know how you hate to--and she
doesn't mind."

"Because it isn't fair that I shouldn't
have my turn as well as the others--it's
disagreeable to all of us.  Now you just let
me have my way, and say nothing else about
it!" declared Elizabeth with authority, and
as usual, she was allowed to have her way.

While Cousin Hannah undressed, moving
ponderously about the little room, Elizabeth
sat on the side of the bed, brushing her
long blond hair, watching with critical
admiration of the beautiful, the gleams of
red and gold the lamplight cast upon its
glittering strands, and formulating in her
mind a plan to find out the secret of her
birth--if secret there was.

She finally decided that plain speech was
better than beating about the bush, and
spoke in a carefully suppressed tone.

"Cousin Hannah," she said, with whispering
decisiveness, "I want to know what you,
and Mother and Mary were talking about in
her room."

"Why, Libby!" exclaimed Cousin Hannah,
plumping down upon the bed in her
astonishment, "did you go and listen to
what we was sayin'?"

"Indeed I didn't!  But I couldn't help
hearing you--and I think it's my right to
know, if you were talking about me."

"But your Ma--but Jennie said she
didn't *want* you should know," argued the
bewildered Cousin Hannah, "land o' livin',
girl, ain't you got a home, and people to
care for you?  Why in tunket can't you be
satisfied with *that*?"

Certainty made Elizabeth calmly triumphant.

"I have felt, for a long time--ever since
I can remember, that I was different from
the rest of my family, though you didn't
give me credit for having sense enough to
see it.  Of course, I love them all dearly
but I can't help feeling that it's my right
to know the truth, whatever it is.  Cousin
Hannah, is or is not my name Spooner?"

"Well," Cousin Hannah evaded the question,
"what would you get out of it if your
name wasn't Spooner?"

Elizabeth leaped up softly, she held her
hairbrush as though it were a scepter; her
long hair flowed and billowed about her as
she walked with majestic tread, up and down
the tiny room--she was seeing visions!

If her name was not Spooner!  That
would mean that her birth was, she felt sure,
indefinitely illustrious some way.  Of course
she would never desert the people who loved
her, and whom she would always love,
but--might not something come of it that would
be grand for them all?

"Libby," Cousin Hannah's eyes followed
the moving figure with a distressed look in
them, "your ma--Jennie Spooner--your
true ma, if love and tenderness count for
anything, never wanted you told.  Mary
knows, and she don't want you should know.
When I watch your uppity ways I tell 'em
it's high time they explained the situation
to you."

"The situation--" Elizabeth hung breathlessly
on her words with shining eyes, and
an eager tremble of her lips.

"Yes, the situation," repeated Cousin
Hannah heavily.  "Jennie Spooner had a
tough time raisin' you--a troublesome
young'un as ever I see.  You teethed so
hard that it looked like she never knew what
a night's rest was till you got 'em through
the gums.  I used to come over here many
a time and help her; what with Ruth bein'
so nigh the same age, she had her hands
full.  It was kept from you for fear of
hurtin' your feelin's, if you must know."

"How could it hurt my feelings?" questioned
Elizabeth, a little puzzled.  "I love
them all--but they should have told me.
They ought to have known they couldn't
change--" a swan to a duckling had been
on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped in
time, "me to a Spooner, even by their love
and kindness."

"Change you to a Spooner?" slow wrath
mounted to Cousin Hannah's face.  She
caught Elizabeth's arm as the girl passed
by.  "I reckon they couldn't make a
Spooner out o' you, that's a fact.  The
Spooners, bein', so far's known to me,
respectable householders--"

"But not what *my* people were," suggested
Elizabeth, her whole face alight, her eyes
shining with eagerness.  "You must tell
me who they were--what my rightful name is."

Cousin Hannah groaned.  "Looks like
I've let the cat out of the bag--don't it?
Well, what I've got to tell ain't nigh what
you think I've got to tell," she asserted
doggedly.  "You'll be sorry for askin'."

Through Elizabeth's mind flashed visions
of a wonderful ancestry; to do her justice
these dream parents did not in any way
displace the father and mother she really loved
with all her young heart--they were only
that vision which comes to us all in some
shape when we feel we are misunderstood--different.

Mary's step was heard approaching in the
little corridor.  She had undoubtedly been
disturbed by the sound of their voices, and
was uneasy for fear Cousin Hannah would
be teased into making in judicious revelations.

"Tell me--tell me quick--" whispered
Elizabeth, shaking her room-mate's arm.
"Tell me before Mary gets here."

"Well, I will," gasped Cousin Hannah.
"You ought to know it--but I warn you
it's not what you're expectin'!"





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.. _`Roy Rides to Silver Spur`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   Roy Rides to Silver Spur

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When Mary stepped into the little
bedroom Cousin Hannah Pratt had already
spoken.

"Your pa and ma was movers that come
here sixteen years ago--movers, like the
folks you seen to-day and made such fun of.
The name was Mudd."

These whispered words sounded in Elizabeth's
ears, and the girl crumpled up on the
bed sobbing just as Mary opened the door.
Mrs. Pratt pulled the elder sister into the
room.

"I've told Libby--she ought to have been
told long ago--with you marryin' and goin'
away and Ruth not havin' a bit of faculty
and her bein' the one to take your place I
think she was obliged to know it."

Mary came across the room with a rush,
and took slim Elizabeth in loving arms.

"Go away, Cousin Hannah, please," she
said.  "You can sleep with Ruth and I'll
stay with Elizabeth."

Mrs. Pratt, glad enough to be relieved
from sight of the misery she had caused,
hurried away and the two sisters were alone
together.  Mary knew very little of what
Cousin Hannah had seen fit to reveal, a
child herself at the time, she had but vague
remembrances of it, and indeed Elizabeth
asked no questions--she only needed to be
comforted, and this Mary did as best she
could.

The next day but one was the wedding
day, Mr. Bellamy was expected in the
morning and they would probably have no
other chance for private talk, but Mary
urged Elizabeth to go to their mother for
comfort when the wedding was over, and
some time late in the night they both fell
asleep.

In the days that followed the wedding,
when everything was strange, and they were
settling slowly back into the usual routine
Elizabeth found no opportunity to speak
with her mother of that trouble which had
come now to haunt every waking hour, and
even pursued her into dreams.

Mary and her euphoniously named
Mr. Bellamy had gone on their way to
Oklahoma, where the bridegroom owned a ranch.
Cousin Hannah Pratt, having helped with
the wedding sewing and the packing, had
gone back to Emerald and her own overflowing
boarding-house.  Mrs. Spooner, the
three girls, and old Jonah were left alone,
face to face with the problem of getting
along.

Everything had settled into the usual
routine at the Silver Spur; Mrs. Spooner,
rather weak from her neuralgia and the
strain of the wedding, sat on the front porch
in a big chair which Elizabeth had
endeavored to make comfortable with rugs
and pillows.

"Are you perfectly sure I can't do
anything else for you, Mother?" she asked
anxiously.  "Mary always waited on you
so beautifully, while--it seems to me I've
never done one little thing for you, when
you've done so much for me!"

A big tear slipped from the long lashes
and splashed on Mrs. Spooner's little hand,
fluttering among the cushions.  In a minute
the mother-arms had pulled the girl's head
down to the mother-breast, the thin fingers
patting the blond braids and the mother-voice
crooning comfort into the crumpled
little ear buried upon the maternal shoulder.

"Don't cry, daughter, Mother loves you
just the same!  Haven't you been our own
since you were, O, such a *wee* baby!  It
was cruel of Cousin Hannah to tell you,
but we won't let it make one bit of
difference.  You're ours and we are yours.  A
thing like that can't matter to people who
love each other as we do."

"It--it doesn't matter, Mother," gasped
Elizabeth, as she mopped her reddened eyes,
"if I can just take Mary's place to you.  I
am going to try, my very level best."

"Then you'll be sure to succeed," said
her mother, confidently.  "You always
succeed in everything you undertake--hadn't
you noticed that, dear?  Now, really, I'm
just as comfortable as hands can make me,
so you run on down to the corral and help
Ruth and the Babe with the ponies.  You
ride with them to Emerald, and get the
mail--it'll do you good.  And be sure you bring
me a letter from father."

Cheered by her mother's words, Elizabeth
gave one more pat and pull to the pillows,
kissed her, and ran down to the corral, where
the girls were roping the ponies.  She and
Ruth could each rope a little, missing about
three out of five throws, but the Babe
usually flourished so reckless a loop that she
entangled herself, and had to be helped out;
in spite of which old Jonah Bean insisted
that she was the only one who showed any
signs of learning the art.

Poor Elizabeth!  Her castle of dreams had
fallen, leaving her wide awake to the fact
that she was no princess of romance but the
humble offspring of miserable movers, such
as had always been the objects of her
shuddering contempt.  Even Cousin
Hannah's heart was touched with pity, and she
tried with clumsy but hearty kindness to
make amends for the grief she had caused
by her disclosure.  Nothing had been said
to Ruth and the Babe, of course--they still
believed her to be their born sister.
However, deep down in her heart, Elizabeth
was walking in the Valley of Humiliation
amid the dust and ashes of dead hopes;
and, as most people know, when one enters
the Valley it is very, very hard to find the
way out again!

Mrs. Spooner, watching the girls ride
down the road, sighed softly.  "Poor child,"
she murmured pityingly, "I can hardly
forgive Cousin Hannah.  But in the end it
may prove the best thing.  I'm afraid we
were spoiling her.  This may bring out the
fine nature that I know she possesses."

Texas is a land of far horizons; Mrs. Spooner
could see all the vast, brown-green
circling plain until it lost itself in the hazy
distance.

Away up the trail that led to her brother's
distant ranch, twenty miles further from
Emerald, she noticed a moving cloud of dust
which resolved itself into an oscillating
speck--two--a man on a pony, with a led horse.

For some reason which she could not have
explained, Mrs. Spooner felt that the
approaching rider was going to turn in at the
Silver Spur.  There was no pleasant
feeling between herself and Harvey Grannis.
John Spooner had bought the Silver Spur
ranch from his brother-in-law when he
came to this part of Texas, and there had
been trouble over the transaction, due,
Mrs. Spooner felt, to Harvey's disposition to take
too much authority.  He was a bachelor,
and the rich man of the community--excepting
the English rancher, McGregor, who did
not live so far away.  He would have liked
to do a good deal for the family of his only
sister, but he wanted to do it in his own way,
asserting that John Spooner couldn't take
care of them, and treating them, Elizabeth
fireily said like paupers.  A hard man, with
his good qualities, yet full of the "rule or
ruin" spirit, and liable to go to great lengths
to make his point.

The approaching rider was now seen to
be a young fellow, scarcely more than a big
boy.  He came up the long bare drive,
stopped at the porch edge and took off his
hat before he spoke to the woman in the
rocking-chair.  She noted that the pony
he rode stumbled with weariness, while the
led horse trotted briskly, unencumbered
with saddle or rider.  She saw, too, that
while the tired pony bore a brand unfamiliar
to her, the led one was marked with a G
in a horse-shoe--Harvey Grannis's brand.

"Good morning, ma'am," the newcomer
greeted her.  He was a handsome lad of
perhaps sixteen, but just now in a woeful
plight, dusty, shaking, haggard with
weariness.  "I stopped to ask if you'd like to
buy a pony at a big bargain."

Mrs. Spooner leaned forward in her chair
with a little gasp.  She was afraid of what
was coming.

"I don't know," she replied evasively.
"Which one of them do you want to sell?"

"O, mine's played out," the boy returned
never noticing the admission his words
contained.  "I've ridden pretty hard, and
besides I've got to have her to carry me to
Emerald, so I can take the train there.  It's
the other one.  He's a mighty fine pony,
and I'll let him go for enough to buy me a
ticket back home."

"Won't you come in and rest a minute?--you
look tired," said Mrs. Spooner,
sympathetically.  Somehow she could not bring
herself to ask if he was from her brother's
ranch, though she felt quite sure something
was wrong about the pony that would go so cheap.

"I am tired, but I've got to go on so as to
catch the six o'clock train," the boy smiled
wanly.  "I guess I can stop in for a drink, anyhow."

He dropped the lines, and the two ponies
stood, cattle country fashion, as though they
had been tied.

Mrs. Spooner got up from her chair,
forgetting, in her excitement, any weakness or
weariness.

"Just come right in and lie down on the
lounge," she invited him.  "It's cool and
shady.  I'll make you a pitcher of lemonade
in a minute.  You'll gain time by resting."

She smiled that reassuring mother-smile
of hers as she opened the door of the quiet
living-room.  The boy followed in, his spurs
clinking on the boards, and dropped wearily
down upon the lounge.  When she came
back he was sitting with his head in his
hands, but he drank the cool lemonade
thirstily, finally draining the pitcher.

"It's awfully good," he sighed, his eyes
speaking his gratitude.  "Mother always
made us lemonade in the summer time at
home.  You--you make me think of her,
someway."

As if the resemblance had been too much
for him, he turned from her with an
inarticulate sound, and buried his face in the
cushions.  Mrs. Spooner sat down beside
him, and after awhile his groping hand
caught hers.  She spoke to him in whispers,
though there was nobody in the house to hear.

"I'm afraid you're in trouble, my poor
boy," she said gently.  "Don't you want to
tell me all about it?  Maybe I can help you."

After a time he found strength to face
her, and tell the poor, pitiful little story.

His name was Roy Lambert.  He was,
indeed, one of Harvey Grannis's cowboys,
and had come west fascinated by the stories
of frontier life.  He had made a contract
with Grannis to work for him for one year.
Then came a letter, telling him that his
mother was desperately ill, and he must
hurry to her.  Grannis refused to advance
him money or to annul the contract.  He
treated the matter with contempt, pretending
to believe that the boy was simply
homesick, and the letter a ruse to get away.
At last, frantic at the treatment he received,
and determined to reach his mother, Roy
got up before daylight, took his own pony
and one of Grannis's which he hoped to
sell for enough money to get home, and set
out for Emerald and the railroad.

"I couldn't walk it, it would take too long
to get to Emerald that way," he said,
"besides, Grannis owes me more than the
chestnut's worth, if I sold it for full value.
I didn't expect to get only just enough to
buy my ticket."

"Two wrongs won't make a right, Roy,"
said Mrs. Spooner, gravely.  "Mr. Grannis
was wrong--very wrong, not to advance you
the money, or let you off your contract.
But did you stop to think he could have you
arrested for horse-stealing when you took
his pony?"

"No!" blazed Roy, "I didn't steal it.
If I had, I don't care.  He's a hard-hearted
old skinflint.  I'd like to wring his neck,
but even Harvey Grannis can't say I'm a
horse thief.  And I *must* get home!"

"Of course you must," soothed Mrs. Spooner,
well aware as she looked at his
flushed face, that Roy himself disapproved
of what he had done.  "I have a little
money, and I will try and manage it, someway."

"Would you?" cried the boy.  "I'll pay
you--I'll send you a check as soon as I get
home."

"Jonah Bean, the only cowboy I keep
now, can ride on with you to Emerald, and
bring your pony back.  I'll try to sell it
for enough to repay myself, or I might keep
it--I think we could use one more gentle
animal."

"You're awfully good," choked the poor
fellow.  "If all the folks in the world were
like you--such a man as Grannis makes me
distrust everybody.  Do you know him?"

"Yes.  I think you're a little mistaken,"
said gentle little Mrs. Spooner.  "Harvey
Grannis isn't really a villain, he's just a
hard-headed, high-tempered man, that was
spoiled by having his own way when he was a boy."

"You don't know--" Roy was beginning,
when she interrupted him.

"I think I do.  Harvey Grannis is my
only brother.  My baby child is named after
him--little Harvie."

"Your brother?"  Roy Lambert leaped to
his feet, looking about with terrified eyes.

Mrs. Spooner divined his thought at once.

"I'm not going to give you up to Harvey,"
she said firmly.  "But I'm going to make
you let me lend you the money, and leave
Harvey's pony here.  The laws calls what
you've done horse-stealing, and you can't
make laws for yourself.  You lie down and
try to get a little sleep, now, my child.  I'll
wake you in an hour."

He thanked her with trembling lips,
turned on his side, and, secure in his trust
of her, fell at once asleep.  When she saw
that he really slept, Mrs. Spooner once more
took her seat on the porch, this time to look
for her brother, being quite certain that
Harvey would follow hot-foot on the trail
of his stolen pony.

She didn't have long to wait; in less than
an hour a buckboard drawn by a pair of
good sized grade horses turned in at the
gate; in it sat Harvey Grannis and one of
his men.  They were tracking the lost pony.
She saw them long before they reached the
house, recognize it, as it grazed on the bit
of sunburned pasture which Elizabeth
hopefully called a lawn.

"Hello, Jennie," her brother called out,
ignoring any coldness there had been
between them, as Mrs. Spooner walked rapidly
out to meet him.  Grannis was a loud-spoken
individual, and she did not care to
have the boy awakened.  "I'm after the
thief that stole this pony of mine.  Is he on
your place?"

"He's asleep in the house," said Mrs. Spooner,
quietly, though her voice was
shaking a little.  "He's very tired, and he's
going to ride to Emerald tonight.  I don't
want him disturbed."

"You bet he's going to ride to Emerald!"
blustered the ranchman.  "I'll have him
in jail there before supper-time!  Come on,
Tom, we'll go in and wake the young
gentleman.  Fetch your rope.  Keep your gun
handy.  You never know what a young,
dime-novel-crazy idiot like that will do."

He sprang from the buckboard, and both
men were starting for the house when
Mrs. Spooner barred their way.

"You can't go in there, Harvey," she
told him.  And now she was trembling so
that Tom, of the rope and gun, was sorry
for her, and heartily sick of his errand.  No
doubt Harvey Grannis was too, which
merely made him talk louder and more
harshly.

"Well, I'd like to know why I can't?"
he demurred, pretending to laugh at her a
bit.  "Who's going to stop me?  Now see
here, Jennie, you always were a simple-hearted,
soft-natured little goose.  Anybody
can bamboozle you.  Look at the way
John Spooner--"

"We won't go into that," warned Mrs. Spooner,
with a flash in her eyes that made
Grannis's cowboy chuckle inwardly.

"What's your reason for defending this
boy?" Grannis argued.  "He's a thief."

"I'm not defending Roy Lambert alone,"
said Mrs. Spooner.  "I'm defending my
brother--a brother I used to be very fond
of--from doing a thing he'll be sorry for
all the days of his life."

Grannis flushed redly through the deep
tan of his sunburned skin, while Tom,
standing by and listening, enjoyed himself
thoroughly over his employer's discomfiture.

"These boys come west crazy for ranch
life," Grannis said dogmatically.  "They
soon get sick of honest work, and invent any
kind of story to get away.  This boy's
lying to you, and he's stolen a pony from
me.  Move out of the way, Jennie, and let
me handle him."

The men had been standing with their
backs to the trail.  Mrs. Spooner noted a
little figure on a gaunt pony whose gaits
were familiar to her approaching from the
direction of Emerald.  Now small Harvey
rose in her stirrups and shouted, waving an
envelope above her head.  Mrs. Spooner
was sorry she had not got rid of her brother
before the girls returned.  Grannis looked
over his shoulder, and feeling unwilling
that his beloved namesake should see him
doing anything unkind rushed the matter
hastily.

"Get out of the way, Jennie," he
repeated.  "Come on, Tom."

A figure appeared in the ranch-house
door, Roy Lambert, flushed and trembling
with the fever that Mrs. Spooner had been
fearing for him.  He carried his belt in his
hand, and was fumbling at the holster to
get his pistol.

"I won't go back alive," he said.

"Rope him, Tom," prompted Grannis in
a low tone.  "I don't want to shoot the
crazy kid."

"Uncle Harvey--Uncle Harvey," came
the Babe's thin, sweet pipe, "I'm glad
you're here, 'cause I've got a telegram for
somebody out at your ranch.  Jonah was
to take it on but now he won't have to."

The child's eyes saw nothing amiss.  The
three men were warily watching each other,
Roy tugging desperately at the holster to
get his weapon which had caught, and Tom
half sullenly loosening and coiling his rope.

"It's for Mr. Roy Lambert," sang out
the little girl, triumphant in her ability to
read even bad handwriting.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A Package and a Leather-Brown Phaeton`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center large bold

   A Package and a Leather-Brown Phaeton

.. vspace:: 2

The men stood rigid at little Harvey's
announcement.  Mrs. Spooner took the
envelope from the child's hands, opened it
and read aloud:

"Mother died last night.  Funeral over
before you can get here.  Sister."

The boy on the steps wheeled and ran
into the house.  Grannis turned unwillingly.

"Well--that looks genuine," he muttered
with the obstinacy of a high-tempered man.
"I won't prosecute him for lifting my
pony--But I want you to understand that
it's on your account Jennie.  I tell you to
turn him out.  He's a bad lot.  If ever he
sets foot on the Circle G he'll have me to
settle with.  If you insist on having him
around your place I'll--I'll--"  His eye
fell on Harvie.  "Take the halter there,
Tom and tie Baldy on behind.  He leads
all right."

"Aren't you going to pay him the money
you owe him," Mrs. Spooner asked as she
saw the men preparing to depart.

Grannis would have paid the money if
it had not been for the presence of Tom.
He could not let one of his cowboys see a
loosening of discipline.

"No, I'll not," he said bluntly and
whipped his team around into the drive.  "He
can't collect a cent off me, and I'm done
making concessions on your account."

"Where are the girls?" Mrs. Spooner
asked as she and the Babe stood watching
the Circle G rig depart.

"They're coming," answered the Babe.
"I rode ahead 'cause they were carrying so
many things and I could go faster.  The
man at the telegraph office paid us for
bringing the message out.  Are you going to
keep Roy Lambert here, like Uncle Harvey
said you ought not, mother?"

Mrs. Spooner nodded as she went back
into the living-room, leaving little Harvie
to start the fire in the stove.  There she
did her best to comfort the poor fellow,
facing his first big sorrow.

"I won't go home now--there's no use,"
he declared, when he could speak.  "But
I'll never go back to Grannis!  If you let
me I'll stay here and work for you.  And
I'd do my best to do for you what a son
would.  Outside of heaven, I've got no
mother now."  And once more his grief
overwhelmed him.

"I'll be happy to treat a good boy like
you as a son," said Mrs. Spooner.  "My
husband is away with the troops, and
we've had a pretty hard time to get along
without him.  I'm sure my girls will be
glad to take you into our household as a
brother.  Maybe providence sent you to
us, to-day.  Maybe we need you as much
as you need us."

With the relaxing of the terrible strain,
and the exhaustion of his grief, the boy
seemed to become really ill.  She sat beside
him, trying to soothe him with tenderly
wise words, and bathing his hot forehead
hi cool water till at last he slept, and she
stole softly out to warn old Jonah, who came
stumping in with a basket of cobs for the
kitchen fire.

"Make as little noise as you can, Jonah,"
she whispered.  "We have a boy in the
house asleep--one of Harvey's cowboys--I'm
afraid he has fever."

"O Lord!" groaned Jonah, in a doleful
whisper.  "Trouble comes double--never
knowed it to fail yit!  'T ain't 'nough that
you ain't right peart, and the boss gone, and
me with the rheumatiz a-ticklin' my right
foot ag'in, but we got to have a no-'count
cowboy, sweater an' shirk, of course, laid
up on us.  Poor gals, I feel for 'em!--an'
you've got nothin' but gals.  Ef you'd 'a'
had a right smart mess o' boys, now--  They'll
have all the work to do--like enough
have to ride and rope and brand, 'fore they
are done, besides nussin' this here boy, and
me'n you throwed in for good measure.
Whyn't Grannis tend to his own sick
cowboys?  Plenty o' folks at his ranch."

"He's not Harvey's cowboy any longer,
Jonah--he's ours, if we need him--and
according to that, we do.  Now don't say
a word, just listen to me--" as the old man
opened his mouth to remonstrate very
forcibly on the utter folly of taking an
unknown person into her home.  Then,
speaking in subdued tones, she told him the story
of the boy from the Grannis ranch.

At the end old Jonah Bean, being
tender-hearted if cantankerous, took out his
bandanna and blew his nose with hushed
vigor.

"If I warn't in the presence of a lady
what's his sister, Mis' Spooner," he said
with elaborate politeness, "I'd up an'
say--*Dad rat* Harvey Grannis's hide!  Manners
an' behavior is all prevents me from usin'
them same cuss-words."

"Thank you for *not* saying them, Jonah,"
approved Mrs. Spooner, gravely, but with
twinkling eyes.  "Now I'll go out and meet
the girls--I hear them coming, and they'll
be sure to wake him with their noise, if
I don't warn them."

The two girls were riding up the path,
and both shouted:

"A letter from *Cuba Libre*!"

"A *fat* letter--and we want to see what's
in it so bad!"

Of course the precious letter was
immediately read--that came before anything
else; the girls, dismounting, the Babe
running out, dish-towel in hand, with Jonah
hobbling in the rear, and all grouping around
Mrs. Spooner, to hear the news from Cuba.

It was a bravely cheerful letter, containing
the best of all news; their father was
well, the health of the army was good, there
was no prospect of a battle.  Then followed
long messages to each member of the
family, loving and jolly; advice to Jonah Bean
about the ranch, winding up with impressive
charges to everybody to be "sure and
take good care of mother!"

"Three cheers for *Cuba Libre*--she's
taking good care of our boys!" exulted
Elizabeth, and Ruth declared fervently: "It's
such good news that it makes me right
hungry!  Let's make muffins for supper
Elizabeth, and celebrate."

"Maybe there won't ever be a real truly
sure-enough battle like Ivanhoe and King
Richard Sour-de-lion and Jonah Bean used
to fight," suggested the Babe, hopefully,
and Jonah added, sagely:

"I don't know nothin' 'bout them two
folks you named over, honey, but I lay you
the war o' the sixties was some punkin's!
I misdoubt this here Cuban scrimmage is
jest a play war."

"Truly, I hope so, Jonah," said
Mrs. Spooner.  "Now listen, children, I have
some more news for you.  We can't have
father with us, but I believe I have found
a 'real, truly sure-enough' brother--a
regular big brother, like other girls have."

"O, Mother," put in the Babe, excitedly,
"I didn't know *that*!  Is he named after
us, if he's going to be our own brother?"

"No, his name is Roy Lambert--but
we don't care what it is," she added, hastily,
remembering how poor Elizabeth had loved
fine-sounding names, "if he is only a good
boy, and I think he is."

Then she told them the story of poor Roy.

"I do think Uncle Harvey is the meanest
old--" began Ruth, indignantly, but her
mother's hand was laid lightly upon her
lips, stopping further outburst.

"That's enough, daughter" she said,
quietly, "they both did wrong, and I think
they're both sorry.  It is all over now, and
we must try and think as kindly of Uncle
Harvey and be as good to poor Roy as
ever we can."

"Yes, and I'll lend him my own pony, if
his is too bad off for him to ride," added the
Babe generously--her own Rosinante being
the joke of the ranch.  "Uncle Harvey
didn't mean to be bad, Ruth--he looked just
as *sorry* when you read the telegram--didn't
he, Mother?"

"I think he is sorry," agreed her mother,
who wished her children to think as well of
their uncle as possible, but Jonah, with a
scornful snort, ejaculated: "Sorry--Harvey
Grannis?  O, Lord, that *is* a joke!"  And
muttering his opinion of Harvey Grannis
pretty audibly, went stumping away, to his
work.

Elizabeth said nothing, only she slipped
her hand in that of her foster-mother and
whispered: "I think the Lord sent him to
you, Mother, because he was in trouble and
needed you."

"Well, I hope he'll be a nice boy, and I
hope he won't be sick.  I'll go in and make
up the muffin batter, Elizabeth, while you
set the table.  I bet he didn't get any muffins
at Uncle Harvey's ranch," said Ruth, who
believed in ministering to the sick by giving
them good things to eat.

They had a very good supper, and the
muffins were really gems, but Roy could not
touch the dainty tray, saying that it looked
awfully good, but he was too tired to eat--he'd
be all right in the morning.

But next morning he was in a raging
delirium, and Jonah Bean had to ride to
Emerald and fetch the doctor, who said the boy
was in for a pretty bad spell of fever.

For two weeks the Spooner household
nursed him, then came a day of rejoicing
when the patient was able to move shakily
about, gaunt and hollow-eyed, but
cheerfully assuring them he felt dandy!
Recovery was swift after that, and it was not
long before the boy from the Circle G, the
outcast horse-thief, was a valued and almost
indispensable member of the Silver Spur
household.

"I don't see how we ever got along
without him," declared Ruth, positively, as she
poked the clothes that were beginning to
bubble in the big wash-kettle out in the
back yard.

"Particularly now that Jonah's laid up
with the rheumatism," agreed Elizabeth,
rubbing the white clothes on the wash-board
with rhythmic strokes that, somehow,
seemed to take a lot of the drudgery away
from the task.

Ruth and Elizabeth were doing the week's
washing; it wasn't a very hard thing to do,
when one went about it with the right
spirit--the determination to try, with cheerful
energy, to get the clothes as clean as
possible in as little time as possible:

   |  "To sweep a room as for God's cause
   |  Makes that and the action fine."


The Spooner girls had never heard these
words of the old poet, but they practiced
the spirit of them a good deal in their work.

It was astonishing how much Roy had
helped to lighten the work for them, as well
as for old Jonah Bean, who declared him
to be nothing less than a God-send.  For
instance, he had filled the kettles and tubs
with water, and fetched a big basket of
cobs to make a fire under the wash-kettle,
all before he had gone to Emerald on what
he declared to be a very particular errand
of his own.

"I wonder what it is," mused Ruth,
curiously, "last week he went--said he had
something very particular to do, you
remember, and he came back late.  He never
brought anything back, that I could see."

"My private opinion is," said Elizabeth,
confidentially, "that he is fixing up some
sort of a surprise for mother's birthday,
He heard us say we were looking for a
package from father, and that we hoped it
would get here in time for her birthday.
I noticed it was right after that he went to
town on business of his own."

"It would be just like him--he's always
trying to think up something to do for us.
Say, Elizabeth, I certainly appreciate this
shelter he built for us, don't you?"

"I don't see how we ever got along without
it: he's certainly a handy boy," declared
Elizabeth, gratefully.

Heretofore the girls had washed with the
glaring sun beating down upon their
unprotected heads, but now Roy had built a
shelter for the tubs.  Timber was scarce,
but he had managed to find enough for the
posts and cross-pieces, and there were plenty
of tin shingles left from re-shingling the
house, so that he had managed to make a
very neat job of it, and one that added greatly
to their comfort.

"Have you all seen the Babe anywhere?"
asked Mrs. Spooner, coming out of the
kitchen.  "I want her to hunt some eggs
for me; I think I'll make some tea-cakes
for supper."

"She's down at Jonah's shack--I'll call
her," offered Elizabeth, but Mrs. Spooner
demurred, saying she would rather go herself.

"I haven't enquired about Jonah's foot,
today, and he may think I'm neglecting
him," said the gentle mistress of the ranch,
who never was known to neglect a living
thing upon it, and was particularly solicitous
about the welfare of her ancient cowboy.

Jonah Bean was a veteran of the sixties,
much given to narrating tales of his own
marvelous exploits; he was also a bachelor,
who declared himself independent of the
whole female sex, inasmuch as he could, if
necessary, sew, cook, and "do for himself"
generally.  Though inclined to be a grumbler,
he was really devoted to all the Spooner
family, particularly little Harvie, whom he
had been the first to nickname "the Babe,"
and he always found her an eager listener
to the tales of adventure he delighted in
telling.

Mrs. Spooner found him sitting in the
doorway of his shack, which was near the
corral, and had originally been intended for
a bunk-house, when John Spooner's hand
was on the helm, and Silver Spur promised
to be a paying ranch.  He was patching a
pair of overalls and talking animatedly to
the Babe, who was, as usual, a rapt listener.
"So Giner'l Jackson sez, sez'e: 'Send me
the pick o' your men from each company.'  And,
when he looks us over, he p'ints at
me.  'What's that runty, tallow-faced little
chap named?  And what's he good for?' he
asts the cap'n o' my company.  And the
cap'n ups and 'lows: 'His name's Jonah
Bean, Giner'l, and he's a powerful hand at--"

"O, Jonah!" interrupted the Babe,
sorrowfully, "Ivanhoe never ran--nor King
Richard Sour-de-lion either.  Nobody but
caitiffs and paynims and folks like that ought
ever to run."

"Why you see, honey," explained old
Jonah patiently, "what the cap'n meant
was that I was like the Irishman's
pig--'mighty little but mighty lively', and could
git over ground faster'n common."

"O," said the Babe in a relieved tone,
"I'm glad *you* weren't a paynim or a caitiff,
Jonah."

"No," hastily denied Jonah, "I warn't--I
ain't no kin to none o' them sort of folks;
I'm a Tennesseean, me'n all my forefathers
before me.  Well, the Giner'l calls me up,
and sez, sez'e: 'Private Bean, your country
is dependin' on you to do some mighty tall
runnin' to-day.  Kin I depend on you to
run so fast the Yankees can't ketch you?'

"I s'luted, and sez I'd do my levelest.
Then, as I was a-sayin' he gimme the papers
and my orders.  'Twas a long way from the
ferry, so's to save time I swum the Jeems
river--high water, and twenty-five mile
acrost, more or less, I disremember rightly,
And then, man, sir!  I everlastin' burnt the
wind!  Minie-balls was a-rainin' like hail,
and I jest natchully had to kick the
bombshells out'n my way.  Right through the
enemy's lines till I fetched up at Giner'l
Lee's headquarters, s'luted and turned them
papers over to him dry as powder--for I'd
swum with 'em under my hat."

"King Richard would 'a' made you a
knight!" breathed the Babe, in ecstatic admiration.

"They didn't have none o' them in our
army, honey, or they mighter.  I shore'd
'a' been promoted to sergeant anyhow, if
Giner'l Jackson hadn't 'a' been killed before
he could send in my recommend."  The Babe
murmured her regret over the General's
untimely taking off.

"Mornin', ma'am," Jonah greeted
Mrs. Spooner, who just then came up.  "Me'n
the Babe, here, was jest a-talkin' over old
times.  She was a-tellin' me the news from
Cuby and I was mentionin' of a few things
happened back yander in the sixties.  I says
this here Cubian war ain't no thin' 'tall but
jest chillun's play-war."

"I hope and pray so, Jonah," said Mrs. Spooner,
her voice trembling a little.  "But--war
is war, I'm afraid."

And to this, Jonah, scoffer though he was,
could only agree.  War, even a play war,
meant some danger.

It was after dark when Roy returned from
Emerald, and--as he had done the last time,
instead of riding up the front way and
whistling a signal from the road, he came in
at the back, surprising the whole family,
who were all gathered in the kitchen.

"Howdy-do, folks!  Gee, that fried chicken
smells good, Ruth!  Mrs. Pratt sent you a
quarter of mutton, Mother Spooner--they
had just killed a sheep.  I hung it up
on the peg outside the back door to keep sweet."

He smiled affectionately on the Babe, who
was eyeing with much curiosity a big
package under his arm.  "And this, I reckon,
must be that birthday bundle from Cuba;
I found it at the express office."

There was a shout of joy from the Babe,
and a satisfied exclamation from her
sisters, who had about given up hope of the
package's arriving on time, the mails from
Cuba being very uncertain.

"Day after to-morrow is mother's
birthday--just in the nick of time," they
exulted.  "Don't you dare take one little,
little peep till then.  Lock it up in your
bureau-drawer, Ruth, so she won't have
temptation before her eyes," laughed
Elizabeth, and Ruth bore off the package, in
spite of the Babe's protest that maybe
father had sent a little present to Jonah--and
he wouldn't like to wait!

"Maybe there's something in it for a little
girl or so," laughed her mother, "but I
think we can wait.  For I'll be forty years
old, and it needs pleasant things to make a
fortieth birthday happy, I can tell you."

At this the Babe hugged herself in delight,
to think there was still another pleasant
thing in store for her mother.  For
to-morrow Elizabeth and Ruth had planned to
make a wonderful cake, iced white like a
real Christmas cake, which, on the birthday
they intended to light with forty tiny
pink candles, already bought and hidden
away in Elizabeth's trunk.  To console
herself, she fell to dreaming over the lovely
things shut up in the brown paper package--to
think of anything real hard was nearly
as good as seeing it.

"Mrs. Pratt's Maudie got back from her
grandmother's last night," said Roy, as
they all sat at supper--except Jonah, who,
because of his foot, had had his supper
carried to him by the Babe.

"They're planning for a big celebration
and a Harvest Home festival in Emerald
next week, and she wants the girls to go
over and spend a few days.  Mrs. Pratt
particularly said both, if you can spare them."

"I wonder what Handle's grandmother
gave her this time," said Ruth, rather
wistfully.  "She always has so many pretty
things when she comes back from a visit
out there.  It must be lovely to have a
grandmother who is well-off."  She sighed
a little, thinking of the many-times
laundered cotton frocks that served Elizabeth
and herself for all dress-up occasions.
Maudie, no doubt, would have a challis, or
maybe even a summer silk.

Elizabeth said nothing, but at the mention
of a well-to-do grandmother she felt a blush
of shame creeping over her face.  It was
such a little while ago that she had indulged
in beautiful dreams of unknown and wealthy
relations; stately grandmothers with
high-piled white hair, gold lorgnettes and
rustling silks; and haughtily handsome
grandfathers of ancient lineage and great wealth,
who would see that she was lavishly supplied
with means to buy the beautiful clothes
necessary for a girl who would move in the
highest circles of society.  Dreams that
ended in such a sordid awakening--O, poor
Elizabeth!

Mrs. Spooner's mother eyes saw what the
girl tried so hard to conceal, and she said
with quiet emphasis: "I wouldn't give
any one of my three girls with their cotton
frocks, for a dozen Maudies with a dozen
silks apiece!"

It was next morning that Roy explained
his mysterious trips to town.

"You know your mother can't walk
much," he said, "and she can't ride a pony,
like we do.  So when I saw a second-hand
phaeton for sale I made up my mind to buy
it for her birthday gift.  Shasta works fine
in harness, so I rode her to town, hooked her
up to the old phaeton, and, last week,
brought it home and hid it out in the corral
shed, where I've been putting in odd minutes
painting it, while Jonah's cutting down
the harness to fit Shasta.  It's just shreds
and patches now, and a mile too big.  The
phaeton's pretty rickety as to looks, so I
went yesterday and got some cloth and
fringe for the top, and you girls must help
me fix up the curtains so's I'll get it done in
time for her to take a drive on her birthday."

"I do think you are a wonder, Roy,"
admired Elizabeth, with sparkling eyes.
"The very thing she needed most--and had
no idea she'd get till father comes home."

"A package from Cuba, and a cake and
a *phantom*!" exulted the Babe, who was
present.  "That's a *cossal* thing, Roy."

"She means colossal," explained Elizabeth,
as Roy turned a bewildered look on
her.  And Ruth added: "She gets them out
of books, those long words that she can't
pronounce.  I wish Mother could send her
to school--she reads too much."

"People can't read too much, Ruth,"
said the Babe severely.  "Some time, when
I go to school I'm going to learn to read
well enough to read all the books in the
round world.  Jonah says there ain't
nothin' like *eddication*!"

"Sure--I agree with Jonah," laughed
Roy.  "Sorry I can't have a fine 'eddication,'
I'd like it the best sort.  But come on
and let's have a look at the *phantom*."

It *was* a pretty rickety phaeton--as to
cover and cushions; Roy had already made
it spruce with a good many coats of leather-brown
paint.  He showed the girls the
fringe and the lining he had bought to
renovate the canopy-top.

"We'll cover the cushions right away,"
said Ruth, viewing the dilapidated affairs
that had, in the distant past, been spick and
spandy leather cushions.

"There, now--I knew I'd never recollect
everything!" said Roy, ruefully.  "I just
got enough brown stuff to line the top--I
clean forgot the cushions."

Elizabeth, as usual, solved the difficulty.

"Mother has an old brown broadcloth
skirt she doesn't wear.  It'll make perfect
cushion-covers, just the right shade.  I'll
take the measures now and stitch up the
covers in no time."

"Elizabeth always did have a head on
her shoulders!" admired Ruth.  "I'm
willing enough, but I never could do anything
but just cook.  Anyway, I'll make the birthday cake."

"And I'll beat the eggs--I can beat eggs
go nice and soap-suddy," boasted the Babe.

"That'll be a great help.  We don't
want any hit-or-miss cake.  Everything's
got to be properly weighed and measured
and beaten.  Now let's go see how Jonah's
coming on with the harness."

Jonah, with the harness in a big cotton-basket
which could be hidden from sight by
throwing a horse-blanket over it if
Mrs. Spooner happened along, was seated
indoors, busily snipping and stitching and
patching away at the rusty-looking leather.

"Now don't you-all come a-frustratin'
me till I git th'ough with my job," fumed
the old man, rather crossly, "'course, you'll
'low 'tain't much to look at--which I ain't
a-denyin'--but jest wait till me'n the boy
gits done--then jedge by ree-sults."

Roy sighed a little bit wistfully.  "I did
want to get something better, but my money
barely held out for this."

"Something better?" scolded the girls,
"who wants anything better?"

"A lovely, low-hung, leather-brown phaeton,"
added Elizabeth, alliteratively, "is
a thing of beauty.  Add brown cushions,
brown harness and a perfectly-matching
brown pony and it'll be too stylish for anything."

"That's sure 'seeing things', Elizabeth,"
laughed Roy.  "Glad you believe in us.
I'll work at the phaeton and try to have it
looking as much as possible like your fancy
picture by to-morrow.  Jonah'll boss the
harness job, and you girls can transform the
cushions."

There were great preparations going on
that day, right under Mrs. Spooner's
unsuspecting eyes.  The girls had ironed the
clothes the day before, insisting that they
required mending immediately, much to
their mother's surprise, for they didn't
usually bother about the mending.

There was indeed plenty of it to do, and,
since Mr. Spooner's absence, very little
money to buy new clothes, so that the best
the patient mother could do was to mend and
darn and patch, till, like the Cotter's wife,
she "made old clothes look almost as well
as new."

She sat on the front porch and darned and
mended busily, while in the kitchen Ruth
and the Babe--who did beat the whites
into most wonderful soap-suds, made a
marvelous silver-cake, which they iced thick
and white--a regular Christmas-cake.  And
Elizabeth ripped up the old brown skirt,
sponged and pressed the cloth, and made the
cushions as neatly as any upholsterer could
have done.  Roy and Jonah Bean, at the
same time, were transforming the harness
and phaeton, to have it all done by the next
morning.  Roy, having his own and Jonah's
work to do, had to snatch odd moments to
rub down the paint and re-cover the ancient top.

Mrs. Spooner was allowed to open her
package from Cuba on her birthday morning,
with the three girls crowding round to
see--the Babe quivering with eager anticipation.

Mrs. Spooner unwrapped from its folds
of tissue-paper the gift they all knew to be
hers--a shawl or scarf of black,
heavily-woven silk, embroidered in most wonderfully
natural pansies; a regular Cuban
mantilla, exquisitely made.

The girls were so delighted, draping their
mother in its soft folds, and admiring the
effect, that they quite forgot a smaller
package which was still unopened--all but the
Babe, who continued to gaze upon it with
fascinated eyes.

"O, Mother, *please* open the little
bundle," she begged at last.  "I'm--I'm just
on *ten-pins* to see what's in it!"

"Now where'd she get *that* word?  What
on earth does it mean?" laughed Ruth, who
was often puzzled over her little sister's
expressions.

"Tenterhooks," translated Elizabeth.
"Only she got 'hooks' mixed up with pins
and needles.  Do open it, mother, and
relieve the 'ten-pins'!"

"I'll let the Babe open it herself.  I'm
sure she can pick out her own present,"
smiled the mother, as she gave the smaller
package to the child.

With awed delight the Babe removed the
tissue-paper slowly, as befitting a solemn
rite: three tantalizing little bundles were
disclosed, tightly wrapped.  She opened the
first; it contained a painted Spanish fan.

"This must be for Elizabeth," concluded
the Babe, with decision, and handed over
the fan to Elizabeth, who waved it with
languid grace, imagining herself to be a Spanish
Senorita.

The next parcel held a pretty handkerchief,
with a wide border of Mexican
drawn-work; this the Babe promptly turned over
to Ruth.  "I don't want that--I can borrow
mother's," she said, with fine assurance.

"O, but I do!  I never had a real pretty
handkerchief in my life.  I don't believe
even Maudie Pratt has one as pretty as
this," exclaimed Ruth, happily.

On this little ranch where things were
hard to get at best, the thrifty mother
always cut up the flour sacks into neat squares,
which she hemmed on the machine; these
when washed and ironed were piled neatly
in each girl's little handkerchief-box, for
every-day use.  For Sundays and extra
occasions there was a little square of muslin,
hemstitched and bordered with narrow lace.
No Spooner ever dreamed of possessing a
better handkerchief.  No wonder that Ruth
exulted over her gift.

The third was a little white box.  When
the Babe removed the lid she hugged the
box to her bosom and pranced joyously
about the room.

"My beads, my beads!" she crowed,
ecstatically.  "My own dear, beautiful pink
necklace!" she held out a string of coral
before her family's admiring eyes.  "Put it
on for me, Elizabeth, so I can run show it
to Roy and Jonah," she begged.  "O,
mother--" with a sudden look of consternation,
"suppose I didn't guess right?"

"You guessed exactly right," reassured
her mother, "but Elizabeth, child, what are
you pinning my hat on for?"

"Just walk out in front and behold another
birthday gift," said Elizabeth, busily
pinning on the hat.  "There, now, you're
all ready--hat, shawl and everything."

Wondering, her mother obeyed, and
beheld drawn up at the door a spick and
spandy looking little low phaeton, painted a
beautiful leather brown; its fringed canopy-top
fresh and neat, its cushions upholstered
in handsome brown broadcloth, and
harnessed to a perfectly-matching brown pony,
in neatly fitting brown harness, already for
taking a drive.

"O, my dears!" there was consternation
in Mrs. Spooner's voice.  "Did you go and
buy a *phaeton*!  How in the world did you
manage?  You know we simply must not
go in debt."

A chorus of protest reassured her.  The
gift was none of theirs--they had not gone
in debt.  Roy had bought it for her with
his own money.

"For just nothing at all, Mother
Spooner," he hastened to assure her.  "It was
just junk.  We, Jonah, the girls and I,
fixed it up for you, so it's really a family
gift.  And you'll find Shasta gentle as a
kitten.  Now you and the Babe get in, and
and Jonah and I'll escort you in style--we
are going to take you over the ranch and
come back in time for the birthday dinner
Ruth and Elizabeth are going to fix up."

As the procession clattered down the
driveway and out into the trail along the
prairie, the Babe nestled close to her mother
and sighed blissfully--she had in mind
another surprise that was to help make the
fortieth birthday a pleasant one.  A big,
Christmassy cake, iced white as snow and
covered with forty tiny pink candles.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A Jewel of Great Price`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center large bold

   A Jewel of Great Price

.. vspace:: 2

Every single member of the Spooner
family with the exception of Jonah Bean, who
declared he didn't have no time to waste
a-pleasurin', were going to Emerald, to
spend the day with Cousin Hannah Pratt
and take part in the Harvest Home festival.

Cousin Hannah, having heard of the new
phaeton, declared that now Mrs. Spooner
didn't have an earthly thing to prevent her
coming to town, and she had sent such
urgent entreaties by Roy, that at last the
mistress of the ranch was prevailed upon to
accept the invitation.

"But I can only spend the day," she
declared, "we can't all be spared at once;
Jonah is just able to be about, we mustn't
leave him too much work to do.  The Babe
and I will come back in the afternoon, and
the girls can stay--and you, Roy?"

There was a little note of interrogation in
her voice as she laid her hand affectionately
upon the boy's shoulder.  She was almost
sure that he wouldn't want to go to a party
that his grief was too recent.

Roy patted her hand, smiling a little sadly
as he shook his head.  "I don't feel equal to
parties yet," he said.

"And as to both Ruth and me staying,
that's out of the question," decided
Elizabeth.  "There'll be a hundred and one
things to do, and you'll try to do them every
one.  Ruth's going to stay all night because
it's her turn--Mary and I went last year.
So *that's* settled, mother."

After some argument, Ruth--who really
did want to stay very much, yielded.  If
Elizabeth wouldn't stay, why she would,
and be glad to.

"And you may carry my fan," said
Elizabeth generously, "nobody--not even
Maudie, will have such a beautiful one.  And
you shall wear my pink girdle, too, it's
newer than your sash."

The Babe sighed.  She was having a mental
struggle as to whether she could practise
self-denial enough to lend her sister the
string of coral beads that were the delight
of her heart.  The situation finally resulted
in a compromise.

"And *I'll* lend you my beads--after I've
wore 'em all day.  But you mustn't forget
to feel every now and then for the catch, to
see if it's fastened," she warned.

"Thank you, Babe, I will," laughed
Ruth, "and I'll take good care of your fan,
too, Elizabeth.  Dear me, won't I be fine!
Pink coral, and pink girdle, a Spanish fan
and my drawn-work handkerchief!"

"I don't approve of girls borrowing
things from each other," said Mrs. Spooner,
doubtfully.  "I've known serious trouble to
result from such practices.  There's always
danger of losing or injuring the things, you
know.  But, if you sisters want to lend, I
won't object.  Only be very careful, because
you couldn't replace them if they were lost."

"I'll be careful as care, mother--don't
you worry."  And Ruth ran happily away,
to pack her suit-case and get together her
simple finery.

There were various attractions to be at
the celebration.  A brass band from a big
town would play in the public square,
between speeches by noted members of the
State Grange.  Pony-races by cowboys from
the neighboring ranches, the inevitable
roping match, a big open-air dinner for the
public, and, to wind up with a dance at night
in the town-hall, where the various exhibits
from the farms--the grain, fruits and
vegetables--were displayed.

As the Spooners desired to see all these
spectacles, they started out bright and early;
Mrs. Spooner, the Babe and Ruth's suitcase
in the phaeton, the girls and Roy riding
their ponies.

Cousin Hannah, whose husband--a mild
little man, quite overshadowed by his big,
bustling wife--was a rancher without a
ranch, spending most of his time taking cattle
to the fattening ranges above, or to market in
other states, lived in a big, flimsily built
frame house in the little prairie town of
Emerald.  Mrs. Pratt boarded the
station-agent, the telegraph operator, the
school-teacher, and nearly all of what might be
termed the floating population of the town.

Maudie, the Pratt's only child, was a
girl about Elizabeth's age, rather pretty
and very much spoiled by her mother and
her grandmother, who lived in another
state, and who often had Maudie come and
visit her.

Mr. Pratt, who happened to be at home
for the festival, with his wife, came out to
meet their guests, welcoming them with
much hospitality.

"The sight of you's sure good for sore
eyes, Jennie," exclaimed Cousin Hannah,
as she folded Mrs. Spooner in her ample
embrace.  "I'm tickled to death to see
you!  And ain't that buggy a sight.  It
looks 'most as good as new, I declare!"

"It's not a buggy, Cousin Hannah--it's
a *phantom*," said the Babe, with dignity.

Almost as good as new, indeed!  Where
were Cousin Hannah's eyes?  Very few
phaetons looked so new and delightful, to
the Babe's vision, anyway, as this vehicle,
in whose loving rejuvenation every one of
them had been allowed to have a hand.

"A phantom, is it?" laughed Cousin
Hannah.  "Well, you come in here to the
dining-room and find out whether these
cookies are phantoms.  The big girls want
to go up to Maudie's room, I know.  Run
along, honies, I'll take care of your ma and
the Babe, and Mr. Pratt'll look after Roy.
Maudie ain't come out, yet; she's feelin'
poorly, and wants to save up her strength
for to-night.  Maudie's right delicate."

"Come in!" called out Maudie, when
Elizabeth and Ruth, with the suit-case
between them, rapped at her door.

The young lady sat at her dresser, attired
in a much trimmed and flowered kimona,
leisurely "doing" her nails with a silver-handled
polisher from an elaborate dressing-case
spread open before her.

"Hello!  If it ain't Elizabeth and Ruth!"
she greeted, with somewhat condescending
cordiality.  "You all come in to see the
country jays celebrate?  Emerald's such a
pokey little hole folks are glad to see most
anything, for a change."

"If you think Emerald's dull, Maudie,
what would you do out on our ranch?"
asked Elizabeth, laughingly.

Maudie shuddered.  "Horrors!  Don't
mention it--such a fate would be too unspeakable!"

"Yet Elizabeth and I manage to stand
it--and I reckon we're as happy as most
girls," protested Ruth, stoutly.

"O, that's because you don't know any
better.  You've never enjoyed the advantages
of city life, as I have," said Maudie
superiorly.

"I suppose your grandmother gave you
a heap of pretty things, as usual," said
Elizabeth, anxious to change the subject.

"O yes, a good many," carelessly replied
Maudie.  "How do you like this diamond
ring?  She gave me this on my birthday."

She held out her hand, which was adorned
with several rings, one of them a small but
showily set diamond.

Elizabeth and Ruth viewed the jewel
with admiring amazement.  Neither one of
them had ever seen a diamond before, and to
their untutored eyes it represented
splendor indeed.

"Try it on," said Maudie affably, pleased
with their exclamations of delighted wonder.
It was much too large for Elizabeth's slender
finger, but it fitted Ruth's plumper one
pretty well.

Maudie replaced the ring on her own
finger, and lifted out the tray of her trunk.
"What are you girls going to wear to-night?"
she asked carelessly.

"I'm not going to stay, but Ruth will wear
her white dress," said Elizabeth.  Somehow
Ruth felt as if she couldn't speak of her
poor little frock among all Maudie's radiant
treasures.

"Oh," Maudie's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Let me show you what I'm going to wear."  And
she unfolded and shook out the shimmering
breadths of a pale blue summer silk,
lavishly trimmed with lace and ribbon.

"O-o-o!" breathed Ruth, rapturously, "I
never saw such a perfectly beautiful dress,
Maudie!"

And Elizabeth echoed, warmly, "A beautiful
dress--and just the color I'd like, if I
ever had a party dress."

"It is rather pretty, I think," acknowledged
Maudie, with the air of a person to
whom silks are a matter of course.  She
took out more dresses, dazzling the eyes of
her country cousins with the sight of so
much magnificence, and making poor Ruth
feel very shabby indeed.

"My pink challis or blue mull would fit
you exactly, Elizabeth--you're tall as I
am.  Stay all night and I'll lend you either
one of them you want.  I'd like to have
you stay, too--the girls here are so common."

Elizabeth's cheeks flushed redly.
Evidently Cousin Hannah had made no further
disclosures.  To Maudie, Elizabeth was still
her cousin, and a Spooner--the name that
had once seemed so commonplace and now
so beautiful compared to that of the
despised movers.

"O, but really I can't stay, Maudie; it's
good of you to want me, and to offer to lend
me your beautiful clothes, but mother can't
spare us both very well, and Mary and I
came last year, you know!"

"O, well, if you won't you won't.  But I
should think you'd jump at the chance of
going to a party," said Maudie, who did
not bother over consideration for her own
mother.

Just then Cousin Hannah poked her head
in at the door.  "Maudie, honey," she
asked, conciliatingly, "can't you just run
in and set the table when dinner's ready,
so's I can stay up town with your Cousin
Jennie and the girls?  And if the telegraph
operator comes in give him his dinner?
You know he has to have it early."

"Why on earth can't the cook give him
his dinner?" frowned Maudie, petulantly.
"I hate that old operator, anyway.  Isn't
the cook hired to set the table?  I ain't
feeling well, and I don't want to overdo
so's I can't go to the hall to-night."

"O, well," said her mother, resignedly,
"I reckon I'll hurry back and 'tend to it
myself, if you ain't feelin' well."

But Ruth spoke up eagerly: "Let me do
it, Cousin Hannah.  I don't care about
going up town--and I'd love to do it for you."

"Bless your heart--you're a reg'lar little
help-all!" beamed Cousin Hannah, gratefully,
and with Mrs. Spooner and Elizabeth,
went on her way in great content, knowing
that everything would go on well at home.

Maudie stayed in her room and spent her
time deciding on her party finery, while
busy Ruth swept and dusted the big dining
room, that was always in a state of more or
less disorder, laid the table carefully and
had the operator's dinner ready punctually.

"Have a good time, little daughter,"
Mrs. Spooner said to Ruth, when at the
close of a long day of sightseeing she and
the Babe were once more seated in the
phaeton.  And Ruth replied happily that
she would--she was certain of having a
perfectly beautiful time.

That night she wiped the supper dishes
for the cook, and, after she had dressed,
helped to button Cousin Hannah into her
own tight and unaccustomed dress-up clothes.

Maudie, who declared that she never
liked to be among the first because it was
more genteel to be late, took a long time
to dress but really looked quite pretty in her
pale blue frock; Ruth, with heartily sincere
appreciation, told her so.

"Thank you," acknowledged Maudie,
languidly, eyeing Ruth's laundered white
dress and pink girdle with tolerant pity.
Then her eyes falling on Elizabeth's fan
her expression changed to eager covetousness.

"Where in the world did you get that
fan?" she asked.  "Do you--do you really
think it matches your dress?  It seems to
me a fan like that is out of place with a
wash dress.  I haven't one.  I lost mine
when I was at grandmother's."

"This is Elizabeth's; father sent it from Cuba."

Ruth spoke rather hesitatingly; she
would have offered to lend the ornament
at once, if it had been her own, for she was
a generous little soul, but she did not feel
like risking Elizabeth's property.

"I say," spoke Maudie abruptly, "lend
me the fan, Ruth, and I'll let you wear my
diamond ring."

"O, Maudie!" gasped Ruth, hesitation
in her heart but delight in her eyes, "I
couldn't--I oughtn't to wear your ring.
Something might happen."

"Not a thing'll happen," declared Maudie
impatiently.  "Here, let me put it on your
finger.  No it isn't too loose, either; my
finger's just as small as yours.  I wish this
fan was mine.  It would have cost a lot
over here, but in Cuba it's different--or
of course your father couldn't have afforded it."

She had coolly appropriated Elizabeth's
fan, waving it to and fro with complacent
admiration.  All Emerald had seen the
diamond, but the fan was entirely new, and
she realized that it would be greatly admired.

Poor little Ruth, dazzled by the flashing
ring, forgot her mother's disapproval of
borrowing, and went to the hall with a light
heart.

The Spooner girls had gone to school in
Emerald when their father was at home, and
they could be spared from the ranch, so she
knew all the boys and girls who were
present, and was soon having a very jolly and
sociable time, while Maudie, as befitting a
person accustomed to city life, was moving
about among the crowd with a rather bored
air, displaying her finery to the admiring
eyes of her neighbors, and waving
Elizabeth's fan languidly.

Still, for all her indifferent air, Maudie
felt aggrieved that Ruth, in her shabby
white lawn, should receive so much
attention, while she in her blue silk was
comparatively neglected.

As she sat beside her mother and watched
Ruth dancing merrily to the music of the
band, Maudie felt a growing rancor towards
her unoffending cousin, finally deciding that
she would put an end to the enjoyment she
could not take part in.

"I want to go home, I'm tired of it
all--it is so stupid," she complained to her
mother.  "Besides, I don't feel very well.
Call Ruth and let's go right away."

"No use disturbing Ruth, she seems to be
enjoying herself, if you ain't," remarked
Mr. Pratt, mildly.  "Any of the young
folks'll see her home safe."

But Maudie flatly refused to go without
Ruth, who was hastily summoned from her
dance by Cousin Hannah, and hustled
unceremoniously away from the hall.

"O, I *did* have such a good time!" said
Ruth, radiantly.  "I'm so sorry we had to
come away so soon, Maudie."

"It takes mighty little to give some folks
a good time," said Maudie, tartly.  "I
thought the crowd was awfully coarse and
common, even for Emerald.  I hope you
took good care of my ring," she continued,
sharply, for Ruth uttering an exclamation,
of fear, had stopped and was groping wildly
about in the sand at her feet.

"O, Maudie!" Ruth's voice quavered with
fear, "O, Maudie--I've *lost* it!"

"Lost my diamond ring!" Maudie shrilled
wrathfully, "O, why was I such a goose as
to lend it to you!"

"What's that?  Your diamond ring that
Grandma Pratt gave you?  O, my me!
Was Ruth wearing it?  How'd that come?
Whatever made you go and lose it, Ruth?"
groaned Cousin Hannah, not waiting for a
reply to any of her questions.

"It--it was too large," faltered Ruth,
"it must have slipped off my finger.  We'll
find it in a minute.  I know I had it on
when we left the hail; I kept feeling of it
because it didn't fit me very well."

"Then you'd no business to borrow it,"
scolded Cousin Hannah.  "What made you
wear it, if it was too loose?"

"Maudie wanted Elizabeth's fan,"
explained Ruth, miserably.  "And--and she
lent me the ring in place of it.  I told her
then it was too large."

"Yes, blame it all on me!" reproached
Maudie, bitterly.  "Here--take your old
fan!  I reckon it didn't cost more than a
few cents, but at least I took care of it!"

"Think where you had it last, Ruth--think
*hard*!" implored Cousin Hannah,
distractedly, "I'd hate so for that expensive
ring to be lost--just throwed away, you
might say.  I don't know what we could
say to Grandma Pratt."

"I had it in the hall, I'm certain," said
Ruth, dull with woe.  "Of course I don't
remember where or when it came off my
finger."

"Then we'll go right back to the hall and
search for it," decided Mr. Pratt.  "Come
along.  No use in making so much fuss,
Maudie.  Wait till you're plumb certain
it's gone for good."

Back to the still crowded hall they went,
and poor Ruth, in bitter mortification, had
to listen to Maudie's shrill announcement to
all and sundry of the fact that Ruth had
borrowed her diamond, and then lost it.
Which came, she explained loudly, of
lending things to people who weren't used to
them, and couldn't understand their value.

"O," thought poor Ruth, in her despairing
heart, "if I'd only listened to mother I
never would have been in all this trouble--if
I'd only listened to mother!"

Mr. Pratt, going to the young men who
had charge of the hall, made known to them
the loss, and there was much searching, but
all without result--Maudie's ring was indeed
gone!

Downheartedly the party trailed along
home; Maudie in tears, sobbing wrathfully
that she would never, never lend her things
again--no matter if people did beg and pray
her to do it.  No indeed, she had learned a
lesson!

And Cousin Hannah, with torturing insistence,
kept asking over and over again if
Ruth couldn't remember where she had lost
the ring.  She ought to try and remember,
seeing that it was her own fault.  She
oughtn't to have worn a ring she knew was
too loose for her finger.

To these questions Ruth could only
answer, over and again, that she didn't
know--she didn't know!  Indeed she was fast
becoming hysterical with fright and worry.

Then mild little Mr. Pratt astonished
them all by speaking with authority that
commanded attention.

"That's quite enough, Hannah," he said
sharply.  "Maudie, don't let's have any
more noise from *you*!  If your ring's gone
it's gone, that's all there is to it.  I told
mother, when she asked me about it, that
it was foolish to give you a diamond when
you was so young.  I don't know if I ain't
glad it's lost, if you want my opinion.  Now
understand, I want an end to all this talk.
No use in badgerin' poor Ruth to death,
either, Hannah."

"For pity's sake, Jim!" exclaimed Cousin
Hannah, "I didn't aim to badger the child.
There, honey, don't cry over it--accidents
will happen.  I didn't aim to hurt your
feelin's, no mor'n *you* aimed to lose the
ring.  I was jest sorter flustered-like."  And
she patted Ruth's hand soothingly.

Maudie, though sniffing dolefully, said no
more at the moment, being warned by a
certain unaccustomed note in her father's
voice that his commands must be obeyed.
But in the privacy of their room that night
she turned the thumbscrews on poor Ruth
with savage pressure.

"Of course people who are just a little
above paupers can lose other people's
property without worrying much about it," she
remarked sarcastically.

And Ruth, in a burst of indignation at
such aspersions on her family, answered
spiritedly: "No such thing, Maudie Pratt!
I intend to pay you for your ring, of course."

"Pay me?" Maudie jeered, scornfully.
"O yes, it's likely you'll ever be able to pay
me a hundred dollars for my diamond!"

Ruth gasped--the amount was so far
above her calculation.  But her fighting
blood was up, for the honor of her family
was at stake.

"I haven't the money on hand, but I'll
certainly pay you by next Thanksgiving,"
she said, with proud resolution.

And the green cardboard box at home,
containing all the money she possessed in
the world, held just thirty-five cents!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Silver Spur Bakery`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center large bold

   The Silver Spur Bakery

.. vspace:: 2

"Elizabeth," whispered Ruth, tragically,
"I have done something too awful to
tell--and I've got to tell it."

"I just knew you were dreadfully
worried," whispered back Elizabeth,
sympathetically.  "I knew it as soon as you came
back this morning.  Mother thought you
were just plain tired, but I felt in my bones
that there was worse.  What is it?"

The two girls were in their room getting
ready for bed, tiptoeing and whispering to
avoid waking Mrs. Spooner, who was sleeping
in the next room.

"It's this, Elizabeth--" Ruth's whisper
was a wail of despair--"I've lost Maudie
Pratt's--diamond--ring: And I've
promised to pay her for it by Thanksgiving!
Elizabeth, it cost--a hundred--dollars!  And
you know I've got just thirty-five cents in
all the world!"

Then, Elizabeth remaining dumb from
astonishment, she went on to tell the whole
story.

"And, O, Elizabeth, how *will* I ever get
the money?" she ended, despairingly.

"You mustn't tell mother, Ruth,"
warned Elizabeth, with that sweet,
elder-sister air that had grown on her since Mary
went away; "she's got worries enough
already with father away, and everybody
afraid it's going to be a dry year.  I can't
think just now of any way to earn a hundred
dollars quick.  I'll sleep on it--maybe
I'll dream of a way.  One thing's certain;
you've got to keep your word, for the credit
of the family."

"I was just sure you'd feel that way about
it, Elizabeth.  What on earth would we do
without you!" sighed Ruth, gratefully.

Secure in Elizabeth's ability to find a
way, she nestled down among her pillows
and went peacefully to sleep.  And indeed
she needed it sorely, after the miserably
wakeful night she had spent with Maudie Pratt.

Elizabeth did not dream at all.  She lay
awake so long trying to think up some
miraculous way by which Ruth and she
might earn a hundred dollars, that when
she did fall asleep her slumber was entirely
too deep for dreams to enter--so deep
indeed that it took the warning rattle of the
alarm-clock to wake her in time to get the
early breakfast necessary for Roy and Jonah.

"Did you think of anything, Elizabeth?"
asked Ruth anxiously, as she, too, sprang
out of bed at the alarm-clock's warning.
And Elizabeth was obliged to confess that
she hadn't yet.

"But don't you worry," she soothed, "I'll
think of a way.  Let's ask Roy, as soon as
we get a chance; somehow I feel sure he
could help."

It was evening before they found an
opportunity to take Roy into their confidence,
down at the milk-pen.  Milking had been
one of the girls' recognized duties before he
came, since then he had forbidden them to
interfere with the chores, declaring them to
be men's work.

Roy set the foaming pails on the fence,
turned out the little bunch of milk-pen
calves kept to lure home the cows from the
open range, and regarded the girls with a
grave face.

"I should call that a tough proposition,"
he said thoughtfully, "but not impossible.
In fact it seems that 'most anything's
possible if you work hard enough for it.  How
about cooking, Ruth?  You're a dandy on
'pie'n things'.  Every ranch round here
would buy your truck if it was properly
advertised."

"That's just it!" jubilated Elizabeth,
"advertise!  Ruth, we'll put up a sign-board at
the road gate: 'Bread, Doughnuts and Pies
for Sale.'  Every cowboy that passes will
see it, and every single one will buy.  I
never saw a boy or man that wasn't hungry."

"Elizabeth has a great head," nodded
Roy, approvingly, "that's the ticket, Ruth.
I'll paint the sign-board to-night and
to-morrow you begin baking--money!"

Ruth breathed a sigh of relief.  "I just
can't thank you enough, Roy," she
declared gratefully.  "I'll bake day and
night if I can just pay Maudie Pratt for
that hateful ring!"

Mrs. Spooner was rather bewildered when
her young folks--the Babe excepted, begged
earnestly for permission to make some
money by going into the bakery business.

"We can't tell you just now what it's for,
mother," explained Ruth.  "Only that it's
for something important.  You'll know all
about it when the right time comes."

"It seems to me that every one of you
does as much work as possible, now,"
doubted Mrs. Spooner.  "But as Ruth's
heart seems to be set upon this extra labor,
I promise not to interfere.  And I won't
ask any questions about it until you see
fit to tell me of your own accord."

The Babe, who had listened carefully to
this conversation, beamed hopefully upon
them, seeing in the plan certain possibilities.

"*I'll* help you, Ruth," she volunteered
magnanimously.  "And maybe if you make
a whole heap of money, you *might* have
enough left over to buy a new Ivanhoe.
Mine's got seven leaves lost out, right at
the most exciting part."

"Done!" agreed Roy heartily, "I promise
that you shall have a new Ivanhoe if you
help.  The bargain's between you and me,
Baby.  We'll leave the girls out of it."

"Except to see that you earn your book,"
laughed Elizabeth.

That night when they were all gathered
around the evening lamp, Roy painted the
sign on a smooth white board, with some
of the brown paint left over from the
phaeton.  Bread, he declared, was Ruth's "long
suit," but as cowboys would scarcely like
dry bread, it was cut out of the list.  Pies,
however, were always acceptable.  Custard
being objected to as too "squshy," they
decided on mince and apple as being best for
cooks and customers.  Doughnuts, of course,
because everybody liked the little fried
cakes, and they could be conveniently
handled.  Completed, the sign read:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "HOME-MADE DOUGHNUTS.
   APPLE PIES.
   MINCE PIES.
   FOR SALE AT
   SILVER SPUR RANCH."

.. vspace:: 2

"Now," decided Roy, after all the family
had duly admired his handiwork, "I'm
going to Emerald early in the morning, and
I'll fetch back all your necessary supplies,
down to the paper bags to hold 'em, by
noon.  The McGregor ranch is shipping
cattle--they'll pass here Thursday, one of
their punchers told me; that'll be day after
to-morrow.  You can spend the afternoon
baking and be ready for them, for I'm
certain they'll buy you out.  Their range-cook's
quit, and Chunky Bill's cooking for the
outfit, so they're about starved for something
good to eat."

"We'll be obliged to have the first
groceries charged to you, mother," apologized
Ruth, "but we promise to pay for them
ourselves."

"Very well--only don't buy too much at a
time," warned Mrs. Spooner, who was
doubtful of the success of the enterprise,
"until you are sure of making sales."

"We'll succeed all right, never you fear,
mumsy," asserted Roy, with cheerful
confidence.  "I'll drum up trade, and Ruth's
good cooking'll do the rest."

Fuel in that woodless country was quite
an item; Roy, realizing this, brought home
the next day a load of coke along with the
other supplies, all, it was agreed, to be paid
for out of the proceeds of the sales.

Also he brought good news from Emerald,
where he had met one of the cowboys from
the McGregor ranch, who not only confirmed
the report of the cattle passing next
day, but told him that the ranch cook had
quit out there, as well as the man hired to
go with the shipping outfit.  He offered to
get Ruth the job of baking for the ranch
until a new cook could be procured.

"Of course I said Ruth would take the
job, so he's to bring along the order in the
morning.  How's that for a beginning for
The Silver Spur Bakery?"

"I see land ahead!" exulted Elizabeth,
joyfully waving her big cook-apron.
"Allow me to invest you with your uniform,
Mademoiselle Chef: You will now proceed
to mix the magic potions, while the Babe
kindles the fire on the Altar of Cookery
known to mere mortals as the kitchen range,
and I complete the rites by rolling out the
crust and filling the tins.  Know all men
by these greetings, the Silver Spur Bakery
is ready for business, and Roy may go tack
up the sign."

Inspired by the hope of reward, they
made a frolic of the baking working with
such zeal and enthusiasm that when
evening came and the chief cook doffed her
floury apron with a sigh of weary content,
there were shelves full of pies and pans full
of doughnuts as a result of their labors.
Delicate pies, with crisply melting covers
and toothsome "inwards," and doughnuts
that were deliciously tender and flavory.

"Just for this once we'll let everybody
have a treat," decided Ruth, generously.
"We'll just make a big pot of coffee and
have doughnuts and pie for supper.  I want
Roy and Jonah to have a taste; they'll
relish sweets for a change."

"And I think we'd better let them fix
the price, too," suggested Elizabeth.  "Men
always know more about such things than
we do."

Roy and Jonah were most appreciative
judges, declaring that twenty-five cents
apiece was dirt-cheap for the apple,
and--mincemeat costing so much more than dried
apples--fifty cents for the mince pies.  The
doughnuts, being superlatively excellent,
were valued at five cents apiece, or fifty
cents a dozen.

The Babe could not be kept off the porch
next morning, hovering there to watch for
the McGregor outfit.  Soon, like Bluebeard's
sister-in-law, she reported a cloud
of dust rising--the customers were coming!

Far ahead of the herd rode a single
horseman who turned in at the gate and came
galloping up to the house.  The futile
chuck-wagon, with its incompetent cook,
slid past unnoticed while the message from
Mrs. McGregor was delivered.  She had
sent a tin bread-box of ample size, and she
wanted it filled with so much bread, cake
and pie, that the Silver Spur Bakery was
rather startled.  She thought the amount
she specified might last them for half the
week, the messenger said, and at the end
of that time she would return the empty tin
box to be refilled.  And the Spooner girls
were to put their own prices on their wares.

While these things were being settled
two other riders from the shipping herd
came up for sample orders, and hurried into
the kitchen with the Babe and Mrs. Spooner,
eager to buy something to satisfy the pangs
of hunger to which Chunky Bill's cooking
had delivered them.

The stocky little Englishman who had
brought Mrs. McGregor's note, and said he
would be back from Emerald on his return
trip next morning for the box, if they would
have it ready for him, paused at the edge
of the porch and negotiated a more personal
errand.

"And I've a little order of my own, Miss,"
grinned he cowboy genially.  "You see,
I'm from the old country, myself, and I'm
fairly longing for a taste of plum-pudding
once more.  Think you're equal to making
one?  I'm willing to pay your own price."

There was a note of wistful eagerness in
his voice that touched Ruth's sympathies,
but a plum-pudding was, she feared, beyond
her powers.  Elizabeth, seeing her
hesitation, spoke promptly.  "Certainly, we'll
be pleased to fill your order," she said, with
business like briskness.  "And if it isn't
as good as any you ever ate in England you
needn't pay for it."

"I'm sure it'll be rippin' good pudding,
if you make it, miss," politely assured the
cowboy, and, with a sweeping bow, he
mounted his pony and galloped away to
join the approaching herd.

As the hundreds of cattle tramped slowly
by, one after another of the attending
punchers turned in at the Spooner's gate, a
purchaser to the full extent of his pocketbook.

Doughnuts and pies fairly melted away;
Mrs. Spooner and the Babe filling the bags
in the kitchen while Ruth and Elizabeth
delivered the goods and received the money.

And, when they counted up the receipts
that night, they found that, deducting all
expenses, there would be five dollars profit!

"*And* the McGregor ranch to bake for!"
crowed Elizabeth, joyously.  "Ruth, I
plainly see land ahead!"

"I'm so relieved!" sighed Ruth, "But
Elizabeth, are you sure you can manage
the pudding?"

"'In the bright lexicon of youth there's
no such word as fail', little sister," laughed
Elizabeth.  "*Of course* I can bake--or boil--or
steam a pudding as well as a born
Britisher!  In fact, being an American
citizen, I don't see why I can't make even a
better one.  Let me take a look at that old
cook-book of mother's."

All the next day they baked for the
McGregor ranch, besides boiling the pudding
for the Englishman.  Elizabeth declared
she wanted him to try it before he paid for
it, but after one glance and a hearty sniff,
he decided to pay in advance the two dollars
and fifty cents which Elizabeth had figured
out as a fair price.

That it was satisfactory was fully proven
when he returned for the next baking, with
orders for half-dozen more.

"I poured brandy over it and set it afire,
like they do in England," he said.  "And
every bloomin' puncher that tasted it is
wild for more!  They call it 'The Perishin'
Martyr Pie.'  O, it's made a hit, all right."

After that there was quite a run on
puddings, and hardly a day passed that the
girls did not make a "Perishin' Martyr Pie"--a
name that tickled them immensely.
Even the Babe learned to mix the batter,
and Roy declared he was quite an expert at
boiling martyrs.

Money flowed into the little green
pasteboard box, so that now there was plenty of
company for the lonely thirty-five cents
it had originally contained, when Ruth
rashly decided she would pay Maudie Pratt
for the lost diamond ring.  It must be
admitted that as the money tide rose Ruth's
spirits fell.

"O, it would be so lovely if we were earning
it for ourselves," she lamented.  "Think
of the things we could buy: If we could
only give it to mother to help with the
living I should be perfectly satisfied--but to
go and hand it over to Maudie Pratt for a
ring she just made me put on--"

"Now, Ruth," Elizabeth interrupted, laying
a loving arm across her junior's shoulder,
"we're all getting lots of fun out of the
work.  I think the whole family is finding
that it is really play to earn money.  Maybe
we'll get into the habit and keep it up after
Maudie's ring's paid for.  Don't you worry.
If we do the best we can, and do it every
day, we are going to arrive at delectable
places."

Ruth looked at her sister fondly.  What
would they do without Elizabeth's strong
heart and capable head for planning?  It was
Elizabeth who hunted up a Mexican boy
sufficiently reliable to be trusted with a
lard-can full of the 'pies 'n things' which
found a good market at the round-ups.
This was not the season for them, but there
is always something of the sort taking place
in the cattle country, and Juan was willing
to drive an absurd number of miles for a
modest share in their profits.  Never a
cowboy passed the Spooners' attractive sign
without galloping up for a purchase, and the
early receipts from the bakery were
astonishingly good.

But after awhile the McGregors secured
a cook, and there were no more round-ups
in reach; the cowboys had all become
surfeited with a rich excess of "Perishin'
Martyrs," so that orders declined and
finally fell off altogether on that commodity.
The grocer was paid, there was nearly a
barrel of flour on hand, and part of a large
tin of lard, but there was only seventy-nine
dollars earned.  Thanksgiving was approaching,
and the hearts of the girls began to
sink, thinking of its nearness and of the
insufficient money in the green box.

And then, the very day before
Thanksgiving, the unexpected happened, when
Mrs. McGregor rode over, bright and early,
from her ranch with a most unusual and
imperative order for pumpkin-pies!

It seemed that a lot of unexpected guests
had arrived from the east to spend Thanksgiving
at the ranch, and, to celebrate the
occasion properly, the McGregors had
decided to join forces with a neighboring ranch
and have a big barbecue and picnic-dinner
in the open, to which all the neighbors were
invited.  The other ranch was to furnish
all the meat for the feast--fat mutton and
beef and shotes, to be barbecued deliciously
over pits of glowing coals, while Mrs. McGregor
was to provide the bread, pies and
vegetables.

"Of course you should have been notified
days ago," said the pleasant little lady, with
deprecating hands outspread, "only I didn't
know myself 'till last night!  Now my cook
can manage the bread and vegetables, and
you, my dears, must furnish the pumpkin-pies
or I'm a forsworn woman: I've
calculated and re-calculated, and I find that,
allowing five pieces to a pie, it will take a
hundred and six pies to give everybody
plenty--you know how men eat!  Now
dears--" she put a persuasive arm around
each girl--"*can* you bake them?"

Ruth gasped.  "How in the world can
we--in one day?  Of course we have plenty
of pumpkins--Jonah raised a big patch of
them for cow-feed, and there's a barrel of
flour and plenty of lard and sugar and
things.  But in *one* day--"

"We'll do it, Mrs. McGregor," interrupted
Elizabeth, smilingly.  "We'll fill
your order, and thank you very much.
Jonah Bean shall deliver them early in the
morning."

"My dear girl, you've simply saved my
life--I can never thank you enough!"  Mrs. McGregor
rose, fumbling in her pretty silver
wrist-bag.  "Twenty-six dollars and fifty
cents, I believe.  Here's your money--and
thank you very, very much: And don't
you forget that every single member of
your family is expected at our Thanksgiving
dinner."

"Why did you take her order, Elizabeth?"
wondered Ruth, when their guest was gone,
"it will work us to death!"

"Not a bit of it, dear child.  Listen, Ruth
Spooner, there's just seventy-nine dollars
in your green box.  Twenty-six added makes
a hundred and five.  Five dollars is a great
plenty for expenses, seeing that we have the
pumpkins already.  The odd fifty cents
will buy a little present for the Babe, and
leave you your full hundred to pay Maudie
Pratt for her ring.  'Rah, 'rah, 'rah for the
girls of the Silver Spur!  Our debt's paid!"

"Glory!"  Ruth's shouts suddenly wavered,
the apron she waved aloft was thrown over
her face as she burst into tears.

"O, Elizabeth--shut the door--I don't
want anybody else to see me cry.  I'm a
wretch--and you're a genius--but--but--I
can't help thinking about us all working
so hard and Maudie Pratt getting all our money!"

"I know, honey," said Elizabeth,
understandingly, "if I stop to think I feel that
way myself.  Let's not stop to think."

Ruth choked down her tears, bathed her
eyes and turned a resolute face from the
washstand.

"I'm all right," she said in a determinedly
cheerful voice.

Elizabeth threw open the bedroom door
and ran out among their helpers.

"Kindle a fire, Babe, while we get the
pumpkins.  Isn't it a mercy that Roy and
Jonah are off the range to-day and can stay.
Everybody'll have to get to work cutting
up pumpkins--even mother."

All day they baked.  The stove in the
house, the brick oven in the yard which had
scarcely been allowed to get cold since Ruth
began her enterprise, were both kept filled.
The baked pies were lifted out of their tins
as soon as cool enough and dropped into
paper plates.  But even so they could not
get enough tins to keep the baking up to
the volume required for getting out the
hundred pies in that length of time.  At last
Ruth announced in tones of dismay:

"There isn't a single tin left.  What shall we do?"

"H'm, let me work my giant brain a
moment," pondered Elizabeth.  "How about
tin shingles?  There're a lot of new ones,
you know, nice and clean.  And plenty of
lard-cans.  Roy can cut rings from the cans,
and lay them on the shingles.  They'll be
extra large pies, but they'll hold the dough
all right."

It was a good idea, and it worked out very
well, with a little care in handling the bulky
"tins," so that there was no more time lost
in waiting for cooling pies.

Jonah, who kept the fires going, became
cheerfully loquacious under the influence
of the strong coffee Mrs. Spooner insisted
on making, to keep the workers awake at
their tasks.  He regaled them with
thrilling stories of the war, and Munchausen
deeds of bravery performed by himself
while in service.  Tales which served the
twofold purpose of inspiring Jonah and
amusing his hearers.

The girls insisted upon their mother and
the Babe going to bed, so as to be rested for
the barbecue, which they determined to
attend, as the ranch lay only a little way
beyond Emerald.  But they, with Roy and
Jonah as able assistants, kept on baking till
the last pie of the hundred and six was
cooling on the shelf, and the voice of the oldest
and most experienced rooster warned them
of the coming dawn.

However, every Spooner was up and
dressed in time next morning, with the pies
safely packed in the wagon, which Jonah
was to drive, Roy and the girls acting as
Mrs. Spooner's escort.

When they started Ruth rode ahead.
Nobody but Elizabeth knew what was behind
her resolutely smiling face.  Pinned in
the pocket of her jacket there was a roll of
bills--a hundred dollars.  The thought of
Maudie's exultation over its receipt pinched
Elizabeth almost as much as giving up the
money.  She lagged behind a little and
talked of it with Roy.  They agreed that
the money-earning fever had got into their
blood, and that nothing less than a new
enterprise to companion this old one, which
they agreed must be carried forward, would
satisfy either of them.

They had reached Emerald when Ruth,
trotting briskly along its one street,
suddenly felt her pony go lame, and quickly
dismounted to examine its hoof for a
possible pebble or ball of clay.

Suddenly, with a curious little choking
cry, she sprang into the saddle and raced
ahead, the pony now going quite easily.

Roy and Elizabeth exchanged indignant
glances.  Evidently Ruth was overcome
because she had to give up her precious money
so soon.

"I guess it's got on her nerves," whispered
Elizabeth.  "I feel pretty much like crying,
myself."

"Ruth must be going ahead to let Cousin
Hannah know we are coming," remarked
her mother, placidly.  "I hope it'll be so
that they can all go.  I haven't seen any of
them since the Harvest Home festival."

But Ruth had stopped a little way ahead,
waving impatiently for her family to catch
up, and hastening on they all arrived at the
Pratt home together.

Mr. Pratt and his wife came out, Maudie,
very much dressed up, followed languidly.

"Have you got my money, Ruth?" she
called in her high, shrill voice.  "I bet
anything you haven't--and I was depending
on it to go to Chicago and study music."

"No," answered Ruth, with emphatic
clearness, "I'm never going to pay you for
that ring.  I want to keep the money for
myself, and mother and Elizabeth, and the
Babe.  O, what *lovely* things we'll have out
of a whole--hundred--dollars!"

The Pratts stared, mystified by this mad
speech.  Elizabeth gasped--it did sound
shocking.  Mrs. Spooner was so little
informed that she supposed there was a joke
on hand, and laughed with motherly
complaisance.  Only Roy, pulling back close
to Elizabeth's shoulder, muttered in an
undertone.

"Ruth's got something up her sleeve.
Hold on, don't make up your mind too
quick about it."

"What in time was Ruthie goin' to pay
you a hundred dollars for?" Cousin Hannah
demanded, at last.

"For my diamond ring," cried Maudie,
"my lovely diamond ring that Grandma
gave me, and that I wouldn't have lost for a
thousand dollars."

"It never cost to exceed twenty-five,"
snorted Mr. Pratt.  "Ruthie's just right
not to pay you more'n that--or half as
much.  It was partly your fault for lending
the ring."

"I'm not going to pay her a cent,"
repeated Ruth, with dancing eyes.  "I've
got the money--a hundred dollars--see
here," and she flourished a sheaf of bills
that made them gasp again.

"I guess I can *make* you pay," stormed
Maudie, "you *promised*, and you've got to
keep your word."

"Well, you *did* lose Maudie's diamond,
you know.  Ain't you goin' to replace it,
Ruth?" asked Cousin Hannah, a little wistfully.

"You must do the right thing, daughter,"
cautioned Mrs. Spooner, taking a part in
the conversation for the first time.

"I will, mother," said Ruth, suddenly
sobered; and she went toward Maudie Pratt
with the sheaf of greenbacks in one hand, and
something which nobody could see clasped
tightly in the other.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A Shiny Black Box`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center large bold

   The Shiny Black Box

.. vspace:: 2

The thing was like a scene in a play,
almost.  Maudie stood, half abashed, half
eager, and wholly frightened.  Ruth came
forward with a confident, buoyant step
that reassured her mother.  A girl who was
going to do something impudently wrong
would never act that way.

"There," said the plump, smiling Spooner
girl, dropping into Maudie's outstretched
palm a little lump of adobe clay that looked
considerably like a rough pebble.  "I picked
that out of my pony's hoof, right in the path
where I'd lost your ring."

"Wha--what is it?" faltered Maudie,
afraid to look.

"Turn it over," prompted Elizabeth
impatiently.

"O, Maudie's almost a paynim, or a
caitiff," breathed the Babe, hiding a too
sympathetic countenance against her
mother's knee.

The Pratt girl turned the little lump of
clay in trembling fingers.  Something
glittered on one side of it; the clay parted and
a circlet with a wee, shining setting lay in
her palm.

"My diamond ring!" she gasped.

Then before them all she flung it from
her, so that it tinkled and skipped on the
porch floor.  This done she sat down on the
step and burst into a tempest of wrathful tears.

"I always hated it," she sobbed.  "It's
such a miserable little diamond.  I wanted
that hundred dollars to go to Chicago and
study music.  How in the world am I
going to go if you don't--"

"Hush, Maudie," Mrs. Pratt cautioned,
and her father seconded the admonition
rather more sternly.

The Spooner young folks had closed in
around Mrs. Spooner's vehicle and were
helping her out and explaining all about the
earning of that hundred dollars.  While
they did so the Pratts managed to get
Maudie straightened up with the assurance
that she should be permitted somehow to go
to Chicago; and by the time the two groups
came together they were ready to drop the
subject, Maudie looking self-conscious if not
hang-dog, whenever anything remotely
concerning a ring was mentioned.

They went on harmoniously enough to
the Thanksgiving dinner at the McGregor
ranch.  Coming home after they had passed
Emerald and the Pratt house, the matter
was again brought up by the Spooners.
The sky was all a delightful lavender, with
the big, white stars of the plains country
beginning to blossom in it, and there was
still light enough to travel very comfortably
over the winding, level road.

"I'm proud of the enterprise and persistance
you all showed in earning that hundred
dollars," said Mrs. Spooner fondly.  "But
it hurts me to think you could keep a secret
from mother as long as that; and such a
hard secret, too.  I'd have been so glad to
help you, dears."

"It was my fault," Elizabeth said, "that
part of it.  I wouldn't let Ruth bother you
because I felt that you had worries enough.
Of course if I'd dreamed for a minute that
Maudie Pratt would tell a story about the
value of her ring, and that twenty-five
dollars was the real price of it, I should have
let Ruth tell you; but a hundred dollars--why,
Mother, until we tried, I wouldn't
have believed it was possible for us to come
anywhere near earning a hundred dollars.
Would you?"

"No," said Mrs. Spooner.  "That's why
I say I'm proud of you.  It's an
achievement any three young persons of your age
may well be proud of--and none of you
neglected your other duties for it."

"It was *lovely*," sighed Elizabeth,
reminiscently.  "I think making money is almost
more fun than spending it.  Ruth can
always earn with her cooking.  I wish I had
a special gift.  What do you think I can
do best, mother?"

"You do almost anything you do a little
better than other people," declared
Mrs. Spooner.  "But there's one thing you can
excel at, and that nobody else around here
attempts, and that's photography.  Why
not try to make a profession of it."

Elizabeth thought it over.

"I suppose I'd have to go to some big
town and study," she ruminated.

"Ruth didn't go to a big town to take
cooking lessons," prompted Mrs. Spooner,
smilingly.  "And you were just admiring
the fact that it was her good cooking that
made the earning of the hundred dollars possible."

"Wise little mother," said Elizabeth,
touching her heel to her pony and riding
ahead, blowing back a kiss as she passed,
and cantering on for some distance.

"I think that's a splendid idea," said
Roy eagerly.  "I knew a boy who worked
his way through college almost entirely by
camera work.  And he was just an amateur
photographer, too."

"I'd help her all I could," put in Ruth,
loyally.  "She helped me--you all did.  I
didn't near earn that hundred dollars alone."

Here Elizabeth came dashing back to
announce to the family that there was an
insuperable obstacle.  If she went into the
simplest kind of photography she would
have a new camera--and oh, quite a lot of
things.

"A camera is easy," said Mrs. Spooner,
"since you've all agreed to give me the
keeping of the hundred dollars, I intend
to put it in the bank as a reserve fund to
draw on in case of an emergency.  I'll
consider this case of yours as one, and buy you
a camera with some of it."

"And I'll fix up a dark-room all right,
Elizabeth," promised Roy, who was always
intensely interested in all the Spooners'
affairs.  "I can do it easily; just board up
an end of the back porch, fix a red lantern
in it for a light, with some shelves and a
sink, same as the kitchen.  I can make it.
It won't cost much, and you can do your
own developing.  Say, Elizabeth, that's easy!"

So it came about that, after some
persuasion, Elizabeth finally accepted the
camera--a small one, with chemicals, films
and everything necessary for a start, all of
them to be paid for out of the hundred
dollars in the bank.  Roy fixed up the
darkroom with all the needed apparatus, and,
thus equipped, Elizabeth declared herself
ready for business, and let the public know
it by adding to the sign down at the road
gate another line, in smaller letters, which read:

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "Photographs made to order.
   Horseback pictures and views of places a
   specialty."

.. vspace:: 2

Ruth still kept up her baking in a small
way.  She no longer undertook such strenuous
jobs as baking for ranches or festivals,
but people passing by usually dropped in
for a bag of doughnuts or a pie, knowing
that they were always kept on hand.  Some
of these customers patronized Elizabeth's
"studio," as she named the little
boarded-up corner of the porch, and had their
pictures taken.  More often she was asked
to go and make a card-picture of somebody's
home, or she tried snap-shots of cattle
handling which sold well to the boys who
could identify themselves or their friends in
a chance group.

Elizabeth made her charges in accordance
with her work, which, being an amateur,
could not command professional rates.  She
studied hard her manual of photography,
and finally after considerable debate, took a
correspondence course in the art.  Still,
living on a ranch, she could barely make
enough to pay for her materials, and indeed
was doing well to accomplish this much.

"When I get so I can earn, and have
enough money to buy a bigger camera, I
might try a place in town, or maybe I'll
put up my prices," she said.  But she
resisted all suggestions that a finer camera be
purchased from the reserve fund.  "If
anything happens we'll need that to live on,"
was her wise conclusion.

Let nobody think that there were not
days of discouragement, when Elizabeth
spoiled her films or the simple drudgery of
the work weighed on her.  Nothing worth
having is got without effort.  Whatever
this girl's ancestry, she had inherited pluck
and persistance, and after a failure she
always went back to work with renewed energy.

"I *will* do it!" she would say to Ruth and
Roy.  "I am going to try to make myself
the very best photographer I can,--and
then maybe the next higher profession will
come along and invite me in."

The Babe, being the only idle inmate of
the Silver Spur, continued to devour
unchecked her books of romance, until an
incident occurred that made Mrs. Spooner
decide that the time had come for her
reading to be a little more varied.  It
happened one day in the following summer,
when old Jonah, with a worried look on his
face, sought her for a little private conversation.

"It's about the Babe, ma'am.  Have you
noticed anything pertickler wrong with her
lately?" he asked anxiously.

"Why no, Jonah; what makes you think
there's anything wrong?  What has she
been doing?" asked Mrs. Spooner in alarm.
She arose from her seat hastily.  "I must
go and find her--where is she?"

"Jest down at the corral, unsaddlin' of
her pony," soothed Jonah.  "No need to be
skeered--at the present.  You set down,
Mis' Spooner, and I'll tell ye.  A while ago
I come acrost her out on the range, a-gallopin'
along on that little rat-tailed cayuse
o' her'n, and I'm blest if she didn't have a
broom-handle over her shoulder, and a old
fire-shovel helt out right straight in front!
She looked out'n her eyes like--well, like
she was *seein'* things.  I calls to her: 'Babe,
whar ye gwine?'  But law, she looks at
me pine-black like I was a stranger, hits
Queen Beren-jerry, as she calls that reedic'lous
cayuse, and hollers back over her
shoulder: 'Avaunt thee, villain!' and a heap
o' other lingo I couldn't make sense outer."

Mrs. Spooner's face relaxed, she dropped
back in her rocking-chair and began to
laugh.  The old man seemed to resent her mirth.

"Now Mis' Spooner, you may take it
that-a-way, but 'tain't like the Babe to be
miscallin' nobody, let alone me what's
raised her.  My opinion is the child's
comin' down with fever, or got a tetch o'
the sun, and you better go to dosin' her
mighty quick!"

"No, Jonah," laughed Mrs. Spooner,
much relieved, "it's just Ivanhoe gone to
her head--not the sun.  She reads too
much, and is too much alone, I'm afraid.
She was only playing she was a knight--a
person out of that book she's always reading.
But thank you for telling me, all the same."

"I'd be glad to think it was no wuss;
but--" Jonah shook his head doubtfully,
"a-misscallin' me a villian don't seem
natchul.  I'll go send her in to you, so's
you can look at her tongue.  My notion is
she needs doctor's truck."

As he hobbled out in quest of the Babe,
Mrs. Spooner sighed a little, feeling that
she had a problem to cope with.  The
lonely child was living too much in a world
of dreams.  "I'll speak to Elizabeth," the
mother mused, thankful that she had
Elizabeth's wise young head and Ruth's willing
hands to rely upon.  The older pair must
take little Harvie more into their hearts.
"What on earth would I do without my
girls to help me!"

Both girls were spending the day in
Emerald, with Cousin Hannah Pratt,
who--now that Maudie was away in Chicago,
studying music, and Mr. Pratt up in
Wyoming with a herd of fattening cattle--was
very lonely, and begged earnestly for some
of the Spooners to come in whenever it was
possible, and keep her company.

When the affair of the ring occurred,
Mrs. Pratt for once found it in her heart to give
her adored daughter some much needed
plain speech, declaring that she was
thoroughly ashamed of the way Maudie had
treated her cousin, and insisting upon
taking the girl out to the Silver Spur, to
apologize to Ruth--a deed that was very
ungraciously done.

Mr. Pratt went even farther, for he took
the ring into his own keeping, depositing it
in the bank with his papers, and declaring
that it should stay there until Maudie
learned to value the truth more than diamonds.

Still, from that very day Cousin Hannah
began to put by a little money every week,
with the view in end of gratifying Maudie's
wish to study music.  Grandma Pratt added
to this fund till at last there was enough,
and with high hopes Maudie had gone to
Chicago, quite sure of becoming a
world-famous musician.

Elizabeth and Ruth returned rather late,
as they had waited for the last mail, which
came in the afternoon.  Mrs. Spooner heard
their merry young voices down at the corral
as she moved about the kitchen, getting
the early supper ready.  Soon they came
hurrying in at the back door, their arms
laden with bundles, followed by the Babe,
now wide-eyed and alert; knights and
paynims had faded away before the present-day
delights of a box of candy the girls had
brought her--an extravagance for which
their mother could not find it in her heart
to scold them, knowing that, next to her
books, the Babe loved sweets.

"I declare you've gone and got supper
ready--you bad mammy!" scolded Ruth,
"didn't you know your big daughters would
be back in time to save you from such extra
work?"

"Yes, and you must stop right now and
go out on the porch, where there's still
light from the afterglow, and read your
letters--two of 'em, and from the folks you
love best--father and Mary."  Elizabeth
fished the letters from the mail-pouch at her
side.  "And we've got a heap of mail-magazines,
and a letter from home for Roy,
that pamphlet on photography that I sent
for, and the new films and developer.  Ruth
had a letter from father, too.  He's all
right, but make haste and let us hear from
Mary."

"And here's a candied fig for you to eat
while you're readin' your letters, mother,"
added the Babe, generously, as she held out
the particular dainty her heart loved best.
"Now I'll go find Jonah and Roy--I want
to give them some of my candy, too."

Mrs. Spooner looked rather grave when
she returned from reading her letters in the
afterglow of the summer twilight.  "Father's
well, and sends love, and wants letters more
than anything in the world, he says he hopes
we'll all remember.  But Mary--the letter's
from John--is not so well--."  Mrs. Spooner's
voice trembled a little--"he sends
me a check, and begs that I'll go out and
spend a few weeks with her.  But how in
the world can I leave you all?"

"Mary not well?"  Elizabeth's tones were
filled with anxiety--"O, Mother, you must
go; we'll get on somehow.  If Mr. Bellamy
sent a check for you to pay your way,
there's nothing at all to prevent."

"We can go in and stay with Cousin
Hannah," put in Ruth, "she needs us,
really--she hasn't got a cook, and there
are so many boarders that we'd be a great
help, I know.

"Yes, you would--and I think it would
do you both good, being in the village a
little while.  But what about the Babe?"
asked Mrs. Spooner.  "You and Elizabeth
could help, but she would only be in the
way.  Jonah was just telling me about
seeing her out on the range, galloping along
pretending she was Ivanhoe, or somebody
else out of her books.  I'm afraid the poor
little thing needs company."

"Take her with you," suggested Elizabeth
promptly.  "A change would do you both
a lot of good.  Just take enough money
from that reserve fund in the bank to pay
her fare, and both of you hustle off just as
quick as possible.  We can get you ready
by day after to-morrow, easily."

This plan, after a little consultation with
Roy and Jonah, was adopted, and
Mrs. Spooner and the delighted Babe set off for
Oklahoma, while Elizabeth and Ruth, much
to Cousin Hannah's delight, went in to
stay with her.  Jonah and Roy--who
declared that he was just pining to get a taste
of Jonah's boasted cookery, were left alone
on the ranch.

Cousin Hannah, who was naturally a
very loquacious person, had become
decidedly reticent on the subject of Maudie
and her musical studies, though in the
beginning the boarders had found the repeated
and detailed information about the matter
rather wearisome.  Even to Elizabeth and
Ruth she said little, though more than
once, they surprised her wiping away tears
as she went about her work.

"I don't believe that ungrateful Maudie
Pratt writes to her mother!" said Ruth,
indignantly.  "I found Cousin Hannah crying
in the parlor just now; she said it was
*toothache*--when I know she has a full set
of 'uppers and unders,' as she calls them.
You see, she'd forgotten.  I believe she was
crying about Maudie."

"Ruth," said Elizabeth in reply--they
had been at the Pratts three days, "do you
remember that a week from to-morrow is
Cousin Hannah's birthday?"

"Why, so it is," said Ruth, "and she
hasn't said a word about it.  She always
used to have a big dinner, didn't she?  I
know what the trouble is--it's Maudie.
She can't bear to have a big birthday dinner
because Maudie won't be here.  Maybe
that's what made her cry."

"Yes, because Maudie isn't here, and
because she hasn't heard from her in two
weeks and is frightened to death about
her--I just chanced to find that out.  Let's
make Cousin Hannah get up a big dinner,
and telegraph an invitation to Maudie.
The telegraph operator'll send it for nothing.
He always gives as much as ten dollars for
a birthday present for Cousin Hannah."

"A birthday present," repeated Ruth.  "I
know what she'd like--she told me
yesterday.  Say, Elizabeth, I believe we could
get one for her, too.  The Revingtons are
going away, and they'd sell theirs cheap,
rather than ship it east."

"What on earth are you talking about?"
demanded Elizabeth.

"Big secrets!" exclaimed the younger sister
exultantly.  "Come on and let's run down
town to Meeker's store and see if Roy's in
from the ranch, I want to talk to him about
it.  Pretty nearly everybody in town'll join
us.  Hurry up!"

The two girls ran down the street, stopping
in at the insurance office to speak to
little Miss Thorpe, a new boarder of Cousin
Hannah's, a stenographer who had recently
come to Emerald.  They went on, cheered
by this interview, and consulted the station
agent, who agreed that Mrs. Pratt, who had
made him comfortable for many years, must
be given a birthday which would raise her
drooping spirits.

"I'd sure do anything that would bring
Maudie home, and *keep* her home," he said,
rather grimly, "because I know that's what
her ma wants--though I'm not so certain
that it'll make her or any of the rest of us
any happier.  If we're all to throw in
together, for one present you can count on
me to double the ten dollars if it has to come."

Roy had joined them by this time, and
was taking down what he called
"subscriptions" with pencil and paper.  As the
three young folks went out the door
Mr. Rouse called after them:

"But you must give us a mighty good
dinner, Miss Elizabeth.  A good dinner
always goes with a celebration of any kind,
and to my notion it's the best part of one.
So you and Ruth put on your studyin' caps,
and get out your cook-books."

"We'll promise to give you a good dinner,
Mr. Rouse," agreed Ruth, heartily, and
Elizabeth added: "If you'll all tell us what
particular dishes you like best, we'll try
to have them, just as a little token of our
appreciation."

This was a happy thought, and it pleased
the boarders immensely to have such
consideration shown them.  Ruth got her own
pencil and note-book, and gravely made
entries of each boarder's favorite dish.  It
was a funny bill-of-fare that she made out:
Chicken-pie and turnip-greens, potato-pone
and apple-dumplings, cold-slaw and Waldorf
salad, and other equally incongruous dishes,
all of which were faithfully and painstakingly
prepared by the conscientious little
cooks, with certain additions of their own,
making a very palatable "company dinner."

Elizabeth sent word to Jonah by Roy; he
was to come over bright and early on the
morning of the birthday, bringing along the
wagon to fetch home the gift for Cousin
Hannah.

Many hands, we know, make work easy.
The week went by swift-footed.  If Cousin
Hannah had heard from Maudie she did not
mention it, and if the girls had any reply to
their telegram they were equally reticent.
The difference was that Mrs. Pratt, in spite
of the birthday preparations became more
and more doleful, while the girls went out
on errands that involved that subscription
paper of Roy's, and beamed with joyous
anticipation.

The great day came.  Ruth and Elizabeth
helped till the dinner was all on and
cooking beautifully, the table set, ready to
dish up the dinner when the time came,
then they both disappeared in a very
mysterious manner, leaving Cousin Hannah
bustling about her kitchen all alone.

Everything went smoothly till the kettle
became dry, and she found there was no
water in the pipes.  Calling Elizabeth and
Ruth repeatedly and finding that they were
both out, Cousin Hannah decided that she
would go herself and see what was the
matter with the wind-mill, as there was
nobody else at hand.

"I know in my mind it's caught," she
muttered, "and only needs a tap with a
hammer to start it a-goin' again.  Well, I
just *got* to have water, so I reckon I might's
well go try to skin up that ladder."

Taking a hammer to loosen the refractory
sails, she climbed slowly and cautiously up
the creaking ladder, and soon had the water
flowing again, as the sails began to work;
they had needed only a slight jar to loosen
them.

On top of the ladder she paused, and
looked wonderingly over the vast plains that
surrounded Emerald.

"My me!  I ain't had such a good look at
the country since I used to live in the
foothills," she exclaimed.  "I feel like I was
standin' on top of one of 'em now, viewin'
the scenery.  O, pity on me--*what* is that!"

With a gasp of horror she clung to the
ladder, her eyes fixed on the object that had
attracted her startled attention.  It was a
wagon driven by a man whom she recognized
as Jonah Bean, and containing something
long, and black and shiny--a box-like object
that made her heart grow cold to look upon.
She got a mere glimpse since a horse-blanket
had been thrown over it, evidently for the
purpose of concealment--as if *anything*
could hide that awful shiny black box:

The wagon was coming slowly--very
slowly, up the road toward her house, and
walking beside and around it was a group
of young people whom she knew for her own
household--Elizabeth and Ruth, and some
of the younger of her boarders, with Roy
and one or two other boys from the
neighborhood.  They seemed excited, and had
apparently one stranger with them, since
she could see an unfamiliar dress of vivid
plaid on the other side of the wagon.

"O me!  O my!" moaned the poor woman,
as she started hurriedly to descend from her
high perch.  "I ain't heard one blessed word
from her in a month!  And I thought she
was just too careless to write to me: My
poor, poor girl!"

Near the bottom, one of the rungs broke
under the weight of her foot, and she barely
saved herself from a dangerous fall by
clinging with both hands and drawing up her
foot to the rung above.

Sitting thus she waited for them to come;
her eyes shut because she did not want to
see, drawing her breath in heavy, muffled
sobs, praying for strength to bear the blow
that was coming, trying to find courage to
look upon that grewsome, shiny black box
when the time arrived.

The wagon drew up in front of the house,
but Roy and Elizabeth came creeping softly
round to the kitchen.  Cousin Hannah could
hear them whispering:

"Let's find out exactly where she is, so's
we can get it in without her knowing--it
might frighten her."  How heartless the
best of young people were!

"Children," quavered poor Cousin
Hannah from the ladder, "come and help me
down--I know what you're bringing--I saw
it away off--and I knew right away--how
could I help knowing!"

"O, *did* you!" exclaimed Roy and Elizabeth,
dejectedly.  They stopped below and
stared up.  "That's too bad.  We're *so*
sorry, Cousin Hannah.  We tried our best
to get it in before you saw what it was."

"What difference does that make?"
moaned Cousin Hannah--Roy and Elizabeth
thought she must have sprained her
foot, and the pain made her groan--"take
me to her--my poor, poor child!  You
shan't call her *it*!"

Roy and Elizabeth laughed rather sheepishly,
and Mrs. Pratt glared at them.  Had
they no feelings!

"How on earth did you find out?" asked
the mystified young people, as they helped
her down and supported her between them
into the house.

They steered her straight for the parlor,
where a crowd stood around the black box.

"Am I to break the news?" asked Mr. Rouse.
But instead of the serious mien
proper to such an occasion he was smiling
broadly.





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.. _`The Wire Cutter`:

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   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center large bold

   The Wire Clipper

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The conclusion of that matter at Cousin
Hannah Pratt's, left a very warm feeling
between the two families, for when Mr. Rouse
moved aside from the black box it was
discovered to be an old-fashioned square piano,
now set proudly on its legs, and seated at
the stool in front of it, her lips parted ready
to burst into song--was Maudie Pratt.

Her mother's astonishment and rapture
pretty nearly scared the donors of the piano
to death, for they had cherished no
intentions of giving Cousin Hannah a fright with
their mysterious preparations.  Maudie had
simply been ill, homesick, and afraid to come
back until she got the telegram the girls
sent.  Putting her at the piano was an
afterthought, and one which some of them
regretted, since she sang all afternoon, and
had to be dragged away for the birthday
dinner.  However, that being an example
of Ruth's very best skill, helped out by
Elizabeth, they had an extremely jolly
time, and went home with promises of
friendship that were astonishing.

"If you ever need anything from me,
remember my heart and my home are open
to you," Cousin Hannah kept repeating as
she waved to them from the steps.

They had little idea how soon they should
be in bitter trouble when they needed
assistance from anybody that would offer it.
Of course it was a dry year--Jonah Bean
declared that it was, taking it by and large,
the worst all-round year he had ever
witnessed in the state of Texas--and he had
seen a main of 'em!

Mrs. Spooner and the Babe after spending
a month in Oklahoma were back again, and
all that was left of the Spooner family at
home once more.  The Babe had greatly
enjoyed this, her first railroad trip, and she
was kept busy for weeks relating her
experiences.  Mary was well again, and had
promised to come in the winter and make
a long visit when, they all hoped and
prayed, their father would be at home with them.

It was a thing they hardly dared own,
even to themselves, but everybody was
beginning to feel worried about Mr. Spooner's
safety, for there had come news of a battle
fought in Cuba, and though all the papers
were filled with the details, no letter had
been received from him.  Day after day
some one rode to the village to bring back
the mail, and day after day the poor little
mother, watching and waiting at home, was
doomed to be disappointed when no letter came.

For the children's sakes she bore up
bravely, always saying with forced
cheerfulness that probably Father had been sent
into the interior, where there was no means
of mailing a letter--it would be sure to
come after awhile.  But in her own heart
she entertained a great fear which she never
breathed to the others--a fear that he might
be among the "missing" after the battle!
The nameless missing.

Then there came the day when Harvey
Grannis, riding over from his distant ranch,
let his sister know pretty plainly that the
public shared her fear.

"No use mincing matters, Jennie," he
said, speaking kindly--though he could not
keep an eager note out of his voice.  "We're
mighty afraid that poor John won't come
back!  He never would take my advice, or
he'd not have been crazy enough to volunteer."

Mrs. Spooner sank down on the lounge
and covered her face, moaning softly.

"Now don't take on, Jennie," her brother
said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.
"Just you listen to this proposition I've
come to make to you: I've got a big ranch,
and a big house, and you are all welcome to
come and live with me.  Your girls are
growing up wild, anyway, without a man
to overlook 'em.  Of course you know, good
and well, that I hold a mortgage on this
ranch of yours, and the interest money ain't
been paid for some time, either.  But that's
neither here nor there.  The question is,
now that John's gone, will you all come over
and let me take care of you?"

A shiver went over the little woman on
the lounge, but she dropped her hands from
before her eyes, and faced the situation
bravely.

"You're good to offer us a home,
Harvey," she said, when she could command
her voice; "but I can't bear to think of
moving till--till I feel sure John's not
coming back!  I'm hoping every day to have
news from him; I'm certain that the
children wouldn't want to leave the home.
Thank you, Harvey, but we'll stay right
where we are, for the present, anyhow."

Then the storm burst--so angrily loud
that Elizabeth and Ruth sitting in the back
room heard every word.

"Don't you think for one minute,"
blustered Harvey, "that you can depend
on me to support you on this ranch: You
needn't keep an old fool like Jonah Bean
and a young horse-thief like Roy Lambert
hanging round, and expect a man who
knows his business to spend one cent for
you.  Such fellows as that are good for
nothing but to run you and your ranch to
rack and ruin.  No, ma'am!  You've got
to come to my house, or you needn't expect
me to take care of you."

"I never asked you to take care of us,
Harvey," returned Mrs. Spooner with spirit,
"I never thought of such a thing!"

Elizabeth, in the back room, looked at
Ruth.  "I just can't stand it any longer!"
she whispered indignantly, "let's go to
mother."  And they marched into the
room, hand in hand.

"Well, I hope you've come to persuade
your mother to listen to reason," grunted
their uncle, as the two girls entered the little
parlor.

"We've come to tell her that we'll take
care of her, Uncle Harvey.  And you've no
right to suppose that father won't come
back!" burst out Ruth impetuously.

Elizabeth added in a milder tone: "We
don't need any help, really, Uncle
Harvey--we're quite able to take care of mother.
We thank you for offering us a home, but
we don't need it.  We've got one--and we
mean to keep it, and support ourselves."

Harvey Grannis gave the newcomers a
long look.  Elizabeth said he tried to "stare
them down."

"Support yourselves, hey?" he grunted.
"Well--I wash my hands of the whole bunch!"

He got as far as the door, marching very
slowly, and expecting to be called back,
when Mrs. Spooner hurried after him, her
hands held out.  The girls were wrathful
and disappointed, but their mother's first
words brought them comfort.

"Good-bye then, Harvey," said
Mrs. Spooner kindly.  "But we won't part in
anger.  The girls didn't mean to offend
you.  I'm sure we'll get along all right."

"Didn't *mean* to offend?" snorted the now
enraged ranchman.  "Well they done so,
mighty easy!  If they get along half as
well making a living as they do at being
impudent to their elders they'll have no
need of help."

"Now, now," soothed Mrs. Spooner, as
she took her brother's hand and raised her
small, tired face for his good-bye kiss.  "My
girls are just high-spirited, Harvey--and
you ought to be the last to complain of that!"

Harvey Grannis kissed his sister
grudgingly--and then was angrier than ever
because he had done this apparently gracious
act.  The girls, nodded to them as a gentle
hint, made no effort towards bidding him
farewell.

"Let them alone," complained Harvey,
"they're fixing it up that I'm an old brute
and they're persecuted angels.  Let 'em
have their way.  We'll see what comes of
it--you needn't expect me to care what
happens after this!"

The very explosiveness of his protest
showed how much he did care.  In point of
fact his sister and her family were all he
had, and at heart he was very fond of
them--not the least of Elizabeth.  Mrs. Spooner
always looked to hear him make some
allusion to her alien birth, but he never did.
He had longed to have these bright, brave
young creatures and his only sister in his
home, to feel that they belonged to him, that
they were dependent on him.  It might
not have been a very pleasant life for them,
but it was what he longed for, and what he
gave up with anger and reluctance.

Down at the road gate he met the Babe,
riding on her pony, Queen Berengaria.

"O, Uncle Harvey, I'm so glad you've
come!" chirped the child, joyously.  "Ain't
you going to spend the day?  It's been the
longest time since you've come, and we all
want to see you so bad."

Harvey Grannis's eyes softened; in his
own rough way he loved the child very
much; she was named for him, and, unlike
the other girls, she was not the least bit
afraid of him.  How he would have loved
to have his little namesake niece to ride
about with him over his own ranch!

"Glad to see your old uncle, are you
Harvie?  Well, I can't say the rest of 'em
felt that way about it!  You're a fine little
girl, and I'd like to have you where I could
keep an eye on you."  He sighed regretfully.
"No, I ain't going to spend the day
this time--maybe some other day.  And
say, Harvie, don't you let 'em talk you into
hating your old uncle," earnestly.

"Why, no Uncle Harvey, 'course not,"
agreed the Babe, wonderingly.  "But there
don't anybody at our house hate you.
Please come on back, and Ruth'll make a
cake for dinner."

Harvey Grannis declined to accept this
hospitable invitation, knowing better than
the child that he had made himself unwelcome.

"I've got to go now, honey," he said.
"You can give a message to your mother
for me."  He looked at his namesake a
long time.  "Harvie," he wheedled, and
nobody would have guessed that his voice
could be so soft and pleading, "wouldn't
you like to come over to the Circle G and
live?"

Little Harvie looked doubtful.

"Do mother and the girls want to go?
What'll father think of it when he gets home?"

Grannis had not the heart say to her, as
he had said freely to the others, that they
must give up hope of John Spooner's
return.  Instead he offered a bait which he
thought would take her mind from the two
questions she had asked.

"I'd give you the prettiest little cutting-pony
you ever looked at, a pinto with blue
eyes.  That old skate you're on isn't fit
for you to ride."

The Babe's own blue eyes filled with tears.

"Queen Berengaria isn't *very* beautiful,"
she admitted, "but she's *awful* good!"

Grannis, with that lack of sympathy
which his type of man shows for the tender
sensibilities of a child, burst out laughing.

"You just say that because she's the best
you can get," he surmised, smilingly.  "If
I had you over at the Circle G to be my
little girl, we'd shoot this old bag of bones
and give you something that could go."

Old bag of bones!  *Shoot* Queen Berengaria!
Harvey Grannis never knew that
then and there he settled the question as
to his namesake's ever agreeing, so long as
she could fight the question, to set foot on
the Circle G as a home.

"Did you say you wanted me to take a
message to mother?" she asked quietly,
after a somewhat lengthy pause.

"Yes," said the ranchman.  "You just
tell 'em I said that the big spring's liable
to give out--and *then* she'll maybe think
different about some things."

Small Harvie repeated the message, her
clear eyes fixed on her uncle's face.

"Now I can say it just like you did,"
and solemnly she parroted the big man's
words, giving quite unconsciously his
intonation, and the threat that was in his
voice.  It appeared that he did not relish
this, for he put in hastily:

"Don't say it cross--just *say* it."

"But, Uncle Harvey, even if the spring
does give out we always water at the big
water-hole.  Nobody ever did know it to
give out, did they?"

"No," said Harvey Grannis, "that's why
I bought the land it's on."

"And you'd always let us water at the
big tank," concluded the Babe, comfortably.

"I would if 'twas only you, honey," he
told her, and his eyes glittered.

He had said that he bought the land for
that water-tank, and he might have added:
"That's why I wouldn't sell it to your
father when he wanted to buy it with Silver
Spur."  He might have said this, for the
Silver Spur joined his big pastures, had once,
in fact, been part of his holding, and when
John Spooner bought from his brother-in-law,
Grannis retained the pasture containing
the tank, saying that he wanted to use
it for convenience in watering herds when
he drove them down to the railroad for
shipping, and that the Spooners could
always use it anyhow.  This was a mere verbal
arrangement, it did not stand in the deed,
and when the Babe arrived with her little
speech and repeated it at the dinner-table
there was consternation.

"What on earth can Uncle Harvey
mean?" asked Ruth indignantly.  "Do you
suppose he thinks the use of that tank could
be taken away from us?"

"I don't think he could really be as mean
as that, Ruth," reassured Elizabeth.  "He's
just trying to worry us because of the way
we spoke.  The tank is on his own land,
you know."

But that the threat was real was proven
later, when Roy announced that Grannis
had come with a wagon and men from his
ranch, and was busy running a wire-fence
around the water-hole.  They were putting
up a locked gate, so that only by permission
could anybody have access to it.

"And the big spring's just mud," said
Roy, gloomily.  "I think Harvey Grannis
is the meanest man in Texas!"

Mrs. Spooner, pale and worn from anxiety
about her husband, received the news
calmly.  "I don't think there's anything to
worry over," she soothed the girls; "Harvey
maybe has some good reason.  Remember
it's a dry year, and other people may have
been annoying him.  Anyway, I'm sure
he'll not forbid us to water our cattle there.
Please put Shasta to the phaeton, Roy, the
Babe and I'll drive down and see about it."

The fence was indeed going rapidly up
when Mrs. Spooner arrived; Grannis
himself was busily directing his men, urging
haste in his usual stormy manner.

"Well," he greeted his sister, "have you
come to your senses yet--you and those
unbroken colts you've got for daughters?  You
see there's no more water-hole for you to
depend on.  Cattle'll die, of course.  Only
thing you can do is to drive 'em over to my
ranch and pack up and come along yourselves.
If ever a set of young ones need
discipline, those two girls do!"

His eyes snapped fiercely--discipline with
Harvey Grannis meant punishment.

"Harvey," asked his sister, quietly
ignoring his attack on her girls, "aren't you
going to give us a key to that gate?"

"Give you a key to the gate?  Yes, when
you send me word that you're packing to
move over to my ranch.  I'm doing this
for your good.  I think you know it, and
those stiff-necked young'uns could see it
for themselves if you'd brought 'em up
right.  That's my last word, and I mean it."

Turning on his heel he walked rapidly
away, leaving Mrs. Spooner to return to
her waiting children.

"Never mind, mother," soothed the
Babe, as they drove slowly homeward.
"Uncle Harvey's not a bad man--he didn't
mean sure-enough that our cattle couldn't
drink at the water-hole."

But her mother knew otherwise.  Harvey
Grannis intended to force them to live with
him, for, as has been said, he was really
fond of his sister and her children.  Since
he had come to believe John Spooner dead,
the thought that now he would have them
all to himself, in his big, comfortable house,
grew very pleasant, so that he had determined,
in his usual violent fashion, to use force
if necessary to accomplish his purpose.

"I'm sure, children, I don't know what
we're to do," Mrs. Spooner sighed, as she
related the ill success of her errand to the
family.  "I didn't dream that Harvey
could be so hard."

They soothed her with words of cheer, and
Elizabeth sat beside her as she lay upon the
lounge, and bathed her mother's aching
temples with cool water.

"Never mind, mother," she whispered,
"I promise to take care of you--always!"

Soothed by the magnetic touch of the firm
young hands, Mrs. Spooner soon dropped
asleep, and Elizabeth looking on the
pitifully frail little form, beheld through
tear-blurred eyes a picture of the past--a
vision of the young mother, delicate and
burdened with many cares, unselfishly
adopting into her home and heart the
abandoned offspring of strangers--the child of
sordid birth and ignoble poverty!  A wave
of passionate gratitude swept over the girl
as she looked, and again she breathed a vow
to always take care of her foster-mother.

Next day Jonah Bean came galloping up
to tell them that the wire of the dividing
fence had been cut in the night, and the
Spooner cattle had, as usual, satisfied their
thirst at the water-hole!  Grannis's cowboys
had rounded them up and driven them out
at dawn, and Grannis himself had ordered
Jonah to come and mend the break, declaring
he had made it.

"I ain't cut that fence, neither a-mendin'
it," announced Jonah oracularly.  "Stands
to reason the cattle got to drink.  Providence
done it, 'cordin' to my way o' thinkin'."

"Grannis yelled something over at me,
but I'm not worrying over it," declared
Roy, "it's the meanest thing I ever knew of.
I'm certainly not going to prevent the cattle
drinking when somebody else cut the wires."

The cutting of a wire-fence is in all
cattle-countries a grave misdemeanor, punishable
by law.  Harvey Grannis, when his "spite-fence"
had been cut, was of course in a
towering rage, threatening to prosecute the
clipper, when caught, and vowing no less
punishment than the penitentiary if the
offence was repeated.

But the next night they were again
clipped, and the Spooner herd once more
rejoiced in abundance of water.  Harvey
Grannis had trusted to the wire-cutter being
frightened away by his loud threats, and
had not set a guard over the fence.  Now
indeed did he swear vengeance against the
offender--"male or female," he declared
fiercely and to further protect the fence
drove a bunch of his own cattle down and
camped in the pasture--he would see that
no more water was furnished the Spooner
cattle, or jail the clipper!

It cannot be said that this move increased
his popularity with his neighbors when they
came to know its meaning.  Indeed his own
cowboys muttered indignantly as they moved
about, pitching their tents and making ready
for camp, that it was a sin and shame, and
the boss too pizen mean to live!  At the
same time they could not help admitting
that it would be much wiser for the Spooner
family to move over into his comfortable
house and be taken care of by the wealthy
ranchman, than to try and struggle along
combatting poverty and drouth.  This
knowledge served to keep them from open
revolt, though the means he had taken to
accomplish his purpose moved them to
scornful wrath.  Brow-beating women and
children didn't agree with the cowboy
sense of honor.

With the coming of Grannis's camp to the
water-hole pasture the Spooner's case
became desperate.  The well at the house had
a small basin which filled slowly, and the
little water it furnished must be saved for
drinking and household purposes.  Jonah
and Roy reluctantly watered their ponies
from it, but the big spring their cattle had
depended on was now only a dry mud-hole.
Roy went privately to Grannis and asked
the privilege of hauling water from the big
tank.  He received for his pains an accusation
of having cut the fence-wires.  This in
addition of Grannis's usual name for him
of horse thief proved so unpleasant that he
was sorry he went.

"Looks to me like we was at our row's
end," remarked Jonah Bean with gloomy
philosophy.  "If they's a turnin' p'int I
hain't seed it.  Might's well sell out, Mis'
Spooner, if you kin find a buyer for the
bunch."

"No, no, Jonah," objected Elizabeth
eagerly.  "We'll find a way.  Can't you
think of something, Roy?" she asked.

Roy's face was sober; he and Jonah had
discussed the question, and neither one could
see any other way than to sell the herd
before they perished of drouth.

"Nothing except sell," he said, shaking
his head soberly.

"Then *I'll* find a way!" declared Elizabeth,
passionately.  "They shan't be sold--and
they shan't starve, either.  You and
Jonah round up the bunch and Ruth and I
will haul water from Munson's pond--it
never dries up, and I know Mr. Munson
won't care."

"O, that will be the very thing!  Mother,
please let us," begged Ruth, eager to help.

Really there seemed nothing else to do.
Elizabeth's plan though it meant hard
work, was at least feasible--for a time, at
least; in the meantime something unforseen
might turn up.

So, with a big hogshead in the ranch
wagon they drove five miles to get water,
which their neighbor Mr. Munson kindly
let them have.

"I always knew Harvey was a cross-grained
old sinner," frankly declared
Mr. Munson.  "Wants to starve you out, I
hear, so's he c'n make you all live with him.
Well, I don't think much of his plan.  But
you're plumb welcome to water--long's you
hold out to haul it."

For three days they hauled water, staying
but not satisfying the famishing cattle's
thirst; and on one pretext or another
Grannis kept his men in the water-hole pasture.
The morning of the third day Ruth came
upon Elizabeth with the wire clippers in her
hand and a very queer look upon her
face--a look that caused an awful thought to
flash into the younger sister's mind.  Could
she--could Elizabeth be the wire-clipper that
Harvey Grannis was waiting to catch--and
jail?  The thing was impossible, she argued
fiercely; Elizabeth simply couldn't do such
a thing!

Yet somehow all day she felt an uneasy
sense that more trouble was brewing, and
that night after their early supper when she
could not find Elizabeth anywhere, terror
seized her, and without letting anybody
know, she ran wildly across the pastures
by the short cut, to search for her.

It was a wonderful velvet-black summer
night, the skies star-sprinkled and the
enemy's camp lighted by a great central
cook-fire that could be seen far in that flat,
plains-country.  Flickering lanterns moved about
it.  Ruth ran on, seeking Elizabeth where
the former cuttings had been, and praying
that she would not find her there.

Halfway across she met Roy coming back
from a secret survey of Grannis's camp.
With panting breath she gasped out her
story.  Somebody must find Elizabeth!

"I will," said Roy quietly, "I think I
know where she is.  You go back to the
house, Ruth--I'll find her."

He turned back in the direction of the
camp and Ruth walked slowly to the house,
meeting her mother and Jonah, who were
driving down the avenue in the phaeton.

"O, mother!" whispered Ruth anxiously.
"Where are you going in the dark?  Who
are you looking for?"

"Hush!" warned her mother.  "I'm not
looking for any one.  Why do you ask?  I'm
going to your Uncle Harvey's camp.  I thought
you were all in your rooms--I didn't want
Elizabeth to know, and I just can't stand
this any longer.  I think, if he's made to
see things right, that he'll give us a key to
that gate, as he ought to, and leave us in
peace.  You run in the house and go to
bed--and don't let Elizabeth know."

"O, goodness gracious!  Whatever shall
I do?" moaned poor Ruth, as she watched
her mother and Jonah drive away.  "Maybe
Roy won't be in time, and while Mother's
right there, begging Uncle Harvey to go
home they'll catch Elizabeth and bring her
before them all!  It would just about kill
mother.  I can't stay here--I just can't!"

Forgetful of the Babe left alone in the
dark, Ruth darted away on the trail of Roy
and Elizabeth.

Supper was over at the camp when
Mrs. Spooner and Jonah reached it.  The
cowboys scattered about on the grass, smoked,
or played cards or read old newspapers by
the light of the cook-fire.  Harvey Grannis
sat on a camp stool before his tent and
smoked a pipe which was anything but a pipe
of peace.  He was angry with his cowboys
who took no pains to conceal their
disapproval of his high-handed proceedings
with the Spooners because they would not
yield, but most important of all, he was
angry with himself, because he knew in his
heart he was behaving in a most contemptible way.

The gate towards the road was not locked,
nor even shut.  Jonah drove through it and
was in the middle of the camp before
Grannis noticed his arrival.

"Can I speak to you privately, Harvey?"
asked his sister, as he arose and came
forward to greet her.

"No, ma'am," he answered with emphatic
loudness.  "Say your say--Everybody's
welcome to hear it.  I've done nothing
I'm ashamed of."

The indignant blood rushed to Mrs. Spooner's
pale face.  She had no wish to
make a scene.  She pushed aside the rug
and stepped quietly from her phaeton.
Jonah held the lines over Shasta, looking
straight ahead of him.  The circle of
cowboys drew closer, listening curiously,
eagerly, most of them with angry distaste, yet
hopeful that the little woman would speak
up to their boss.

And she did.  She told him pretty plainly
what she thought of his behavior.  She
began with the sale of the ranch to John
Spooner and the verbal agreement concerning
the use of this tank or water-hole which
had never in the memory of man gone dry.
Her voice faltered when she spoke of her
husband's absence and danger, the doubt
which Harvey had expressed of his brother-in-law's
ever returning to his family.  She
mentioned the conduct of her daughters as
highly creditable to them.

At this point Harvey, enraged by being
reproved when he fully expected entreaties,
broke in.

"Well, those same high-spirited girls of
yours have been cutting wires, ma'am--and
wire-cutting is a penitentiary offense.  Jake
over there, saw a girl snooping along the
fence and bending over working at it, and
when he got down there three wires were
clipped in two, and swinging.  That's the
way your girls show their high-spirit!"

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed
Mrs. Spooner indignantly.  "Neither Ruth nor
Elizabeth would do such a thing.  They
fully understand that it's a crime before the
law--though surely what you are doing,
Harvey, is a crime before Heaven.  Maybe
you think I cut the wires?"

"No, no, Jennie," began Harvey, somewhat
abashed, yet still thoroughly angry.
"You hold on and I'll catch the minx in
the act--we've got three men hidden down
by the fence now--Here they come!"

There was a stir off in the darkness where
the fence cutting had been.  Mrs. Spooner
put her hand to her heart and gasped, praying
silently that neither of her girls had been
driven into reckless reprisals.  She had
talked to them about it, again and again
as she did to Roy, begging them to remember
that two wrongs never made a right.  Then
she turned away and hid her eyes against
the phaeton edge.

"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Jonah Bean.

For Elizabeth Spooner, Ruth Spooner and
Roy Lambert were being hustled into the
circle of light by two eager cowboys.

"We caught your wire-clipper, boss,"
they sniggered jeeringly.  "Caught 'er in
the act!  We'll all stand by you when you
fix to send her off to jail!"

"Elizabeth--my child!  How could you?"
wailed Mrs. Spooner.

"You see--I told you!" broke in Grannis,
speaking loud to cover his dismay.

"O, I didn't cut the wires," said Elizabeth
composedly, adding in her clear tones,
"I didn't--neither did Ruth or Roy.  But
we got there just as they caught the
wire-clipper, and we came along to see how Uncle
Harvey likes his work.  Look, Uncle Harvey!"

And she drew aside to reveal the clipper.





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.. _`A Partner of the Sun`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   A Partner of the Sun

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It took Harvey Grannis a long time to
live down that scene by the camp fire; for
when Elizabeth drew aside there stood
revealed, clinging to her skirts, a pair of
wire-clippers clutched in her free hand--the Babe.
Harvey Grannis stared incredulously for a
full minute, and everybody stared at him.
Then he turned away with an inarticulate
exclamation that was like a groan.

"O, Uncle Harvey!" cried the Babe,
rushing forward at the sound of his voice,
clasping his knees, bumping him with the
wire-clippers, looking up at him, her face
streaming with tears.

"It wasn't this child," he declared fiercely,
catching her up in his arms and glaring
across her head at the others.  "The rest
of you are puttin' it on her--of if her poor
little hands done the work, you all egged her
on and made her do it."

"No, they didn't," declared the child,
squirming free and getting to her feet, her
real courage coming to her aid and sweeping
away the nervous fright that had possessed
her.  "I cut the wire that first night--and
then I cut it the next night, because the
cows were thirsty, and I knew you wouldn't
be mad after all--you were just making
believe, weren't you, Uncle Harvey?"

She turned confidentially to him, and the
big man looked exceedingly foolish.  The
tension of the scene slackened a bit, and one
or two of the cowboys snickered.  But
Mrs. Spooner's face was stern as she came forward
and took her little girl by the hand.

"You see, Harvey, why I don't want to
come and live in your house," she said
clearly and distinctly.  "Perhaps you
understand now why I'm not willing that you
should have a chance to discipline my girls.
Look what you drive people into!"

Her glance went fleetingly to Roy, and
everybody in the cow-camp remembered
how Grannis's ideas of discipline had made a
sort of horse thief out of a very honest lad.

"This child's a minor," began Grannis,
sulkily.  "She's not to blame.  If you have
a mind to let her come and live with me--even
part of the time--I'll give her the key
to the gate.  What do you say?"

Mrs. Spooner looked at her little girl's
face and read the terror and distaste in it.

"Please, O, *please* don't, mother!" came
the imploring whisper.  The Babe had
visions of Queen Berengaria slain and herself
set to careering about on a strange pinto
that she could never love--and yet expected
to be thankful for the change!

"I say that you've proved yourself as
hard as usual, Harvey," Mrs. Spooner
returned quietly.  "I couldn't spare my
baby--even if she were willing to go.  Why can't
you be contented with the children loving
and respecting you--and staying
independently in their own home?"

The defeat was too public.  Grannis
would not accept it.

"All right," he growled.  "That gate's
locked from this on--and you can get along
the best way you know how for all of me.
It's lucky it wasn't one of your older girls
that played this trick--or one of the men
you employ.  You've got off easy."

The Spooner party went home in despair.
The Babe showed unexpected spirit and
demanded that, as she had cut the wires,
the cattle be allowed to go in and water
that night.  They were.  Nobody interfered
with Ruth and Elizabeth when they
hauled three hogsheads of water the next
morning while Grannis's force was breaking
camp and before they had mended the fence.

But that was the end of everything.
There was no news from Cuba, and
Mrs. Spooner began to look about her for some
way to dispose of the cattle.  It was the
next week, in the midst of her perplexities,
that Harvey Grannis rode up to the ranch
to warn them that he intended to foreclose
his mortgage on the place at once.

"I'm doing it for your own good, Jennie,"
he argued.  "I'll still hold to my offer to
give you all a home.  Common sense ought
to tell you it will be a sight better to live at
the Circle G and have a man to look after
you than to stay here and starve, depending
on a jail-bird, an old fool and a couple of
feather-headed girls.  When do you think
you'll be ready to move?"

"I must consult my girls first, Harvey,"
said Mrs. Spooner quietly.  "They are
down at the corral--I'll call them at once.
I have a dreadful headache this morning,
and when I've explained the situation to
them I'll go and lie down.  They can answer
your questions as well as I."

Her brother fumed a good deal at this,
vowing that he wouldn't be surprised if she
felt called upon to consult old Jonah and
the jail-bird!

"I certainly do intend to consult them,"
replied his sister mildly.  "Only just now
they are out hauling water from Munson's
pond.  But the girls'll be here in a
minute--I will do as we all think best."

Elizabeth and Ruth felt their hearts sink
at sight of their uncle, certain that his
coming meant some new disaster.  "He couldn't
bring anything else!" they thought indignantly.

Mrs. Spooner, warning Grannis to silence,
explained his proposition to the girls very
clearly and calmly; she wished them to see it
as favorably as possible, for in her heart she
could think of nothing better--there seemed
to be no other alternative; it seemed they
must live with Harvey, hard as it would be.
When she had finished she went to lie down.

Ruth looked at Elizabeth for counsel as
her mother left the room.  If there was any
other way, she was sure that Elizabeth
would find it.

"We'll agree to give up the ranch at
once," began Elizabeth.

"You'll have to," interrupted Harvey
Grannis.  "Those are the terms of the
mortgage.  I *could* put you out to-day, but
I'll give you time to pack."

"With the privilege of making our
payment when father comes home.  Are you
willing to do that, Uncle Harvey?"
Elizabeth finished.

Grannis agreed promptly to this, certain
now that he would have his own way with
the family.

"Then we'll move next week," decided
Elizabeth.

"I'll send my teams over for your
things--Monday, say?" asked Grannis, in high
satisfaction.

"O, no," Elizabeth demurred, "there'll
be no need to bother you.  Jonah and Roy
can move us without any help.  Thank
you, just the same."

"Jonah and Roy, is it?" snorted Grannis.
"Well, I told your mother, and I tell you,
that I won't have that young horse-thief
on my place.  The teams will be here
Monday.  See that you're ready when they
come."

"But we aren't going to the Circle G,
Uncle Harvey," said Elizabeth, mildly.

Grannis was in the doorway, he turned,
his look of surprise and dismay was almost
comical.

"Where are you going, then?  Straight to
destruction, I suppose.  And dragging your
poor sick mother with you.  I want a word
with Jennie about this."

"Mother has allowed me to speak for
her," Elizabeth said.  "Ruth and I are
going to take care of her.  We can--you
know we can."

She spoke with assurance, but she had as
little idea how the thing was to be
accomplished as Ruth had when she offered to
pay Maudie Pratt a hundred dollars--with
only thirty-five cents at home in her
pasteboard box!  Perhaps the memory of
the triumphant conclusion that matter
worked up to, put confidence in Elizabeth's
voice.  Anyway, Harvey Grannis went
storming away, informing nobody in
particular that his sister's family were an
ungrateful lot, declaring that he had washed
his hands of them--all except little Harvie.

That night when the chores were over and
supper ended, the Silver Spur household
gathered on the porch and resolved itself
into a committee of ways and means, with
Elizabeth holding the floor.

"I've been thinking of a plan," she said
cheerfully.  "As Ruth claims, I've a head
on my shoulders--whether there's anything
in the head, or the plan, is for the rest of
you to decide."

"I have a great deal of confidence in your
ability and common-sense, daughter," said
Mrs. Spooner faintly from her rocker.  Her
head was better, but it left her spent and
white.

"Your scheme'll be a good one--I'll back
it," Roy followed.

"Of course--we'll all back what Elizabeth
says," agreed Ruth.

"'Cause Elizabeth *knows*," chimed in the
Babe, loyally.

"Well, she ain't so foolish--for a gal,"
old Jonah put in last.

Elizabeth was fairly overwhelmed by
their trust in her.  "You see we can't
stay here, and we *won't* go to the Circle G,"
she began, flushed with her family's
praise, "of course we may hear from father
any day, but we'd have had to get rid of the
cattle--anyhow that bunch Uncle Harvey
shut out from the tank.  It seems to me
the best thing we can do is to go into
Emerald to live.  There isn't a sign of a
photographer in the place; everybody says my
work is worth paying for, and Ruth would
have a chance of earning something.  Besides,
there'd be school for the Babe, and
we'd be near Cousin Hannah."

"Say, don't think you're the only worker
in this family hive!" protested Roy, "I
haven't a profession, but I *can* get a job any
day.  Mr. Pell's son Joe has gone away to
school, and he needs a clerk in the grocery
the worst kind.  I reckon I'll earn money
enough to pay rent, and a little bit over."

"They's jobs a-waitin' for young folks to
pick up, but 'tain't easy when you're gettin'
on in years," sighed Jonah, dolefully.
"Nothin' *I* kin do in town, I reckon.
Maybe the Old Soldiers' Home'll take keer o' me."

There was a chorus of indignant protests
from the whole family.  Jonah knew they
couldn't get along without him!  Wherever
they went he should go to--that was settled.
The tender-hearted Babe, with her arms
around the old man's neck, cheered him
further by adding: "Me'n you'll help mother,
Jonah--she'll need us."

"Bless your heart, honey, if that ain't
the gospel truth!" agreed Jonah, now quite
cheerful.  "They's a gyarden to make, an'
a cow to milk--we can't get along without
one, and wood to chop.  Maybe the ole
man *will* earn his salt, after all."

Early the next morning after this
decision Elizabeth and Ruth rode into town to
see about getting a house.  The only vacant
one in the place was an old adobe, rather
dilapidated, but with plenty of room, and
enough ground fenced in to keep a cow,
besides having the garden and small patches
they would be obliged to plant for
vegetables and cow-feed.  It belonged to
Mr. Rouse, the station agent who boarded with
Cousin Hannah, and he was so glad of the
chance of getting it occupied that he told
the girls if they would agree to make the
necessary repairs, he would let them have
it rent-free for the first six months.

This was joyfully agreed to, and the very
next day Jonah and Roy went to town to
see about making the repairs--mending the
roof, putting in window panes, and whitewashing
the interior, so that at last it was
converted into a very respectable and
comfortable habitation--really more
comfortable than the ranch-house, for the adobe
walls were thick, and would keep out the
cold in winter and the heat in summer as well.

During the days that the men worked on
the adobe Ruth and Elizabeth were busy
packing up, while the Babe and her mother
drove about in the phaeton, making
arrangements for the keeping of the cattle and
ponies, for Mrs. Spooner determined that
she would not sell them--it would be like
admitting her husband was dead.

Mr. Munson, a man with a big ranch and
a big heart, readily agreed to graze the
cattle, scoffing at the idea of taking a third
of the increase for his share, until
Mrs. Spooner declared that, unless he did, she
could not allow him to be burdened with them.

"Then I hope for your sake it won't be
long, ma'am," said the rancher heartily.
"No news is good news, I've always heard
say, and there's no tellin' when John may
come."

Another neighbor agreed to graze the
ponies, and the Babe earnestly begged that
he would be very, very kind to Queen
Berengaria, who was a good pony, if she
wasn't so very pretty!

With everybody working like beavers, it
was only a few days before the Spooners
closed the doors of the lonely little
ranch-house, striving bravely to think that it
would only be for a little while, and took up
their abode in the old adobe in Emerald.

If there had been, just at this time, a
voting contest for the most unpopular man
in the district, Harvey Grannis would
undoubtedly have won the prize by a big
majority.  Everybody was so indignant at
his treatment of the Spooners that they
vied with each other in showing their
sympathy and friendship for the family, sending
them such loads of vegetables from their
gardens and choice cuts of fresh meat when
a beef was killed, that it was a long time
before they had need of anything else;
while Cousin Hannah came over on the first
day, laden with trays of good things for the
first meal.

Everybody tried to be very cheerful as
they gathered around the brightly-lighted
supper table that evening, eating the good
things Cousin Hannah had provided with,
it must be confessed, scant appetite; their
hearts were full, but each tried bravely to
see only the bright side, and, because they
tried so hard, at last became really cheerful,
discussing their plans for the future with
some enthusiasm.  Only the Babe wiped
away tears, as she thought of Queen Berengaria
out in strange pastures without a soul
to think of taking her lumps of sugar at
feeding-time!

"I'll plow up the land and sew it down in
rye for cow-feed," said Jonah, "before I
git ready to go to gyardenin'.  I got to
hustle, too, for time's a-flyin'."

"I won't set into work at the store till
next week," said Roy, "for I want to fix
up that shack out in the yard for a studio--with
*two* display windows, if you please,
one for cakes and one for 'takes'.  A skylight
in the roof, and a little curtained-off
dark room, and there you are, all ready
for business, Misses Spooner!"

"O, Roy, that *will* be lovely--I simply
couldn't get along without you--none of us
could, in fact.  And I'm expecting my
enlarging camera any day.  I reckon I'll spoil
some pictures before I get used to it;
anyway, I can experiment on the family first."

"I'm so glad we've got a good cook-stove,"
said Ruth, contentedly.  "I expect
to make money on bread.  Cousin Hannah
says she'll get me all the orders I can fill."

"And what are me'n you going to do,
mother?" enquired the Babe, with interest.

"Well, I'm going down town to the store
tomorrow and buy some pretty gingham for
cutting out into school dresses which you're
to stitch up on the machine, if you'll try
to run the seams straight.  Then, as soon
as they're made, we'll get some school-books,
and a little girl about your size will
put on one of the new dresses, take the new
books in her new book-bag, and go right
straight to school--where she'll be a credit
to us all, I'm sure."

"I'll learn to read so good that I'll be
able to read all the books in the whole round
world!" sighed the Babe, happy in the promised
fulfillment of her highest earthly desire.

By the time the new studio was finished
Elizabeth had quite a display of photographs,
having 'taken' the family and all the
neighbors who were handy, finding Maudie
Pratt a willing and excellent subject, while
Ruth in her own show-window set forth a
tempting array of tarts and pies and doughnuts,
in token that the bakery was in operation.

Mrs. Pell, the wife of Roy's employer,
was their first customer, bringing her twin
boys of seven to be photographed.

"Their pa says if anybody can make 'em
stand still long enough to get a picture,
they'll sure deserve a prize," declared the
twins' mother frankly, as she arranged
Wilfred's big, smothering collar, and tied
anew the huge red bow under Wilmot's
chin.  "I taken 'em to the finest picture-taker
in Houston, last summer, and the best
he could do was a proof that had three
heads apiece on it!"

"I think I can manage them, Mrs. Pell,"
said Elizabeth, confidently, seeing more
orders ahead if she could succeed where the
city photographer had failed.  "They are
such cute little fellows.  Now, boys, if
you'll be real quiet I'll give you a doughnut
apiece, in just one minute," she promised
the squirming twins, who brightened
amazingly, keeping expectant eyes upon the
doughnuts which Elizabeth had placed at
just the proper elevation.

They were muffled and choked in stiff
white pique suits, not a bit comfortable, and
their mother insisted that they should be
posed in a very stiff position, with their
arms about each other.  However, in the
end Elizabeth secured a very good negative,
"at least it has only one head apiece," she
laughed.  "But send them over when they
have on their everyday clothes, and let me
take a picture for my window, if you don't mind."

Mrs. Pell didn't mind--indeed she was
highly gratified, and she sent Wilfred and
Wilmot over promptly, as soon as they had
changed to their old collarless and tieless
play overalls.  Then, while the Babe told
them a fairy story to excite the proper
amount of interest in their faces, and
Elizabeth bade them eat doughnuts at will, to
promote happiness that "showed through,"
she snapped her camera on a most excellent
likeness--so good, in fact, that their proud
father ordered a bromide enlargement to
be made, and advised all his customers to
go by the studio and see that cute picture
in the window--the cutest thing in the shape
of a photograph he'd ever seen took.

Trade increased, and both girls soon had
all they could do--indeed Mrs. Spooner,
in her heart, often sighed to think of the
free young souls doomed to have so much
work and so little play in their busy lives.

It was plain from the first that the
Spooner girls and Roy Lambert could
maintain the family, though it took every bit
of strength and every ounce of energy the
three young people could bring to bear on
it.  Mrs. Spooner drew a breath of relief
when one day she saw her brother Harvey
turn in at the gate and calmly walk across
to the studio as though he were an ordinary
customer, coming on an ordinary errand.

"Be nice to him, dear," she cautioned
Elizabeth, when she informed her of the
unexpected customer in the studio.  "I'm
proud of your independence, but it breaks
my heart to have you girls working so hard,
and getting none of the pleasure nor the
education that you ought to have."

"I think we're getting lots of education,
if you ask me," laughed Elizabeth, as she
put on her business apron and prepared to
go out.  "As for pleasure--I never was so
happy in my life--except for worrying a
little bit about father--and he may come
home any day of course, and stop *that*."

She ran across the yard to the little
building, where she found her uncle gravely
inspecting the photographs in the window,
having come to a decision as to the style
he preferred for a dozen cabinet portraits
of himself, which he announced to be the
errand that had brought him to Emerald.

It was to Elizabeth like a little play to
keep up her business manner with Uncle
Harvey all through the sitting.  She was
urbane and impressive.  She told about it
gleefully at the supper table that evening.

"How much?  And when can I have
'em?" the customer had asked as he arose
from his sitting.  Elizabeth got his tone
exactly in telling of it.

"One dollar down, five dollars when they
are finished, a week from to-day, I'm pretty
well rushed with orders, and can't promise
them any sooner!" reported the photographer
to her family.

"Then he took up his hat, and stood
twirling it 'round and 'round, as if he
intended to say something else.  I suppose
he changed his mind, for he went away
without another word.  I was glad; I
wonder what he really wanted.  Something
more than pictures, I'll bet.  Anyway, I
think I got a good picture."

On the day appointed Harvey Grannis
put in an appearance at the little studio at
nine o'clock in the morning.  He took the
filled envelope Elizabeth handed him
without a word, paid his money and lingered a
moment, never looking at the pictures.

"Hadn't you better see whether you like
them?" asked Elizabeth.  "We all think
them very good.  I took the liberty of
giving mother one, because she liked it so
much."

"O, er--by the way, how is Jennie?"
asked Grannis, uneasily.

"I'll call her if you'd like to see her,"
returned Elizabeth promptly, and there was
a mischievous light in her eyes.

"No, no--not at all," stammered the
ranchman.  "That is, I have a little matter
to talk over later--never mind now."

They were crossing the side yard between
the house and the studio.  Without waiting
for further Instructions Elizabeth called
blithely:

"Mumsy--Uncle Harvey wants to see you!"

She was sure that Mrs. Spooner was just
inside by the window, anxiously waiting
for what her brother might see fit to say or
do.  The call was responded to with
unexpected, and so far as Grannis was
concerned, unwelcome promptness.
Mrs. Spooner came out on the front porch and
walked down the steps to greet her brother.
The Babe, always eager for peace, though
still shy of the man who had thought of
shooting Queen Berengaria, followed.  Ruth
advanced from her bakery as the two left
the studio.  Old Jonah came around the
house, wheeling a barrow, and to complete
the family picture Roy just then drove up
in a grocer's delivery wagon and stopped at
the curb.

"Well, we all seem to be here," remarked
Harvey Grannis, rather feebly.

A bicycle-mounted boy wheeled up perilously
close between the delivery-wagon and
the gate, Roy turned with a little annoyance,
then he saw that the messenger held
a yellow envelope in his hand, and was
approaching Mrs. Spooner.

The little woman's breath came in gasps,
since the ceasing of her Cuban letters she
was always afraid of the sight of a telegram.

"Don't let her have it--I want to say
something first," Grannis protested, getting
between the messenger and his sister.

"I'll open it for her--she would want me
to," declared Elizabeth, snatching the
envelope from the messenger's hand.

"Why, it isn't addressed to mother--it's
addressed to--to--*father*!"  And she let
the yellow envelope flutter to the ground,
where the messenger regarded it with lack-luster
eyes, then picked it up and prepared
to depart with it.

"Party ain't living here?" he asked,
snapping together his receipt book, which
he had opened for signature.

"This here lady's his late wife," asserted
Jonah, lugubriously, getting things rather
mixed in his excitement to see what the
telegram contained.  "Give it to her--she's
the proper person to open it."

Once more Grannis put himself between
the messenger and his sister, protesting
again that he had something to say before
she read the message.  And, at this second
protest, there came an unexpected interruption.





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.. _`The Rose by Another Name`:

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   CHAPTER IX


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   A Rose by Another Name

.. vspace:: 2

In at the gate walked a tall, bronzed
soldier in khaki, who reached forward an
authoritative hand, saying calmly to the
messenger, "Give it to me--it's mine."

Everything about them seemed suddenly
unreal.  Mrs. Spooner, catching sight of
the newcomer, quietly crumpled down in a
dead faint at his feet!

Elizabeth found herself running into the
house for a glass of water--moving like a
person in a dream, making a desperate
amount of effort without advancing an
inch.  Then, all at once, she was back to
find her father kneeling on the gravel beside
his wife, resisting Harvey Grannis's efforts
to raise her.

"Keep her head low, Harve--never raise
a fainting person's head," he cautioned.

The Babe was crying and snuggling in
under her father's elbow, Roy had rushed
into the house and brought back the afghan
from the couch.

"She's all right," said Captain Spooner,
confidently.  "She's coming round now.
What made her faint, do you suppose?"

"O, Father!  Because you came back so
suddenly," said Ruth.

"We hadn't heard from you in months,
you know," Elizabeth added in a low tone.
"We've been horribly uneasy, daddy."

The captain turned and kissed his tall
girl, then he slipped a careful arm under his
wife's shoulders.  Ruth and the Babe, pushing
for their share of attention, had to be
cautioned.

"Quiet, girls!" he warned.  "We'll lift
mother in to the couch, and then I'll count
you chickens and see how you look.  Help
me, Harve."

Harvey Grannis had been edging away
with a very curious expression on his face;
now he had no other course left open but
to come forward, lift his sister's limp form
and assist in carrying her into the house.
On the way she regained consciousness
enough to protest lovingly, assuring them
that she was all right, and ashamed of being
so silly as to faint.

"O, Father, why didn't you telegraph,
so it wouldn't have scared mother?" the
Babe voiced the general wonder.

"I did," said Captain Spooner.  "But
Mr. Rouse was away on his vacation, and
the new man they had in the office sent the
telegram out to the ranch, because it was
addressed to Silver Spur.  You see, I'd got
no letters, and didn't know of your moving.
The boy had it along with one from Harve to
me, re-sent from Havana.  I'll read it
now."  And he tore open the yellow envelope.

"O, Daddy," begged the Babe, frantically
trying to smother him.  "Don't you ever,
ever go to war again--no matter if that's a
telegram from the president for you to go
back--don't you do it: And *what* did you
bring us from Cuba?"

"Wait and see, you little rascal," laughed
her father, lifting her in his arms, and
forgetting, for the moment, his telegram.
"My!  What a big girl you are, to be sure!
And how well you are all looking--except
mother.  We must try and get some roses
to grow in her cheeks.  Jonah, you old
sinner--shake!  We'll swap war stories to
beat the band, winter evenings out at the
ranch.  And Harve," slapping Grannis
jovially on the shoulder, "glad to see you,
too.  I'll read your telegram now.  Why in
the world didn't you let the folks know long ago?"

"I--I was a little delayed," said Harvey
nervously.  "In fact, I just came over
to-day to tell 'em."

"And the interest money?  I suppose
you got that all right?  O, yes--you say
so in this telegram.  Got it right on the dot.
No chance to act the hard-hearted landlord
and turn 'em out, hey?" and he laughed
genially.  The world seemed bigger and
warmer and sweeter to the children, now
that their father was at home; in the
fullness of their joy they had no thought of
Harvey Grannis and the wrongs he had
caused them to suffer.

Their uncle had been nervously turning
his hat in his hand, going to the door and
coming back during the greetings between
the re-united family.  It spoke well for his
courage that he had not made his escape
unnoticed.

"I--I just wanted a chance to speak
about that, John," he began, clearing his
throat nervously.  "Your check was all
right, of course, but I haven't banked it
yet.  In fact, I just came over this morning
to tell the folks, as I said."

Elizabeth realized in a flash that Harvey's
telegram announcing Captain Spooner's
approaching arrival had come just before he
came to order the photographs.  He was
trying them for some decent way of
explaining his conduct.  She remembered his
peculiar manner, and parted her lips to
speak when some impulse of kindness made
her close them again.  Harvey Grannis had
done them all an injury, this was an
opportunity for her to forgive an enemy.
The next moment she had reason to be glad.

"Then you did get the interest money all
right?" the captain persisted.

The red blood flamed in Grannis's tanned
and bearded face.  His confusion was painful.

"O, yes--O, yes, I got that," he
admitted with an entreating glance toward
his sister.  "I--there was something
connected with that that I had intended
explaining to Jennie.  In fact--if you'll let
me, I'd like to make you a deed to the ranch."

"Let you?" echoed Captain Spooner, his
keen blue eyes on his brother-in-law's face.
"Make a deed to the ranch?  Why, I only
sent you the interest money.  The last
payment remains to be met."

"Yes, I know," Grannis hurried to say,
"but Jennie's my only sister, and we had a
little misunderstanding--she'll tell you all
about it later, no doubt.  I feel myself to
blame--that is, I was mistaken.  I'd like
to make it up to--of course, I know there's
some of your family that'll never forgive me."

Then Elizabeth did a beautiful thing,
and one which endeared her to all of them.
She marched across the room to Grannis,
put out a slim hand and said:

"I hope you don't mean me, Uncle
Harvey,"--with a very distinct emphasis--"for
if I have anything to forgive--it's
forgotten."

Harvey took the girl's hand with a fervor
that was pathetic.

"We mustn't talk about disagreeable
things when John's just got back," said
Mrs. Spooner decidedly.  "Harvey, you'll stay
to dinner.  Somebody ought to go for
Roy--he went right away, without giving John
a chance to meet him--he wanted us to be
uninterrupted at our first meeting.  I'm
sure Mr. Pell will let him off for the rest of
the day, if we ask him."

"I'll go for him," offered Harvey, hastily,
and before the eyes of the astonished
Spooners, he put his hat on his head and
walked away in search of Roy--the boy he
had insisted upon regarding as a horse-thief!

While he was gone Captain Spooner was
put in possession of all the facts.  He was
inclined to be indignant over his brother-in-law's
conduct, but the girls joined their
mother in excusing Grannis's behavior,
insisting that it came from an excess of zeal
for their welfare.  When Harvey and Roy
returned together, apparently on the best
of terms, Captain Spooner was ready to let
by-gones be by-gones with his brother-in-law,
and to welcome Roy to the family
circle with heart-felt cordiality.

"I've heard all about you from mother,"
he said as he gripped the lad's hand.  "Only
she says that he never can make me know
just what you've been to them all, and how
very proud she is of her adopted son."

Roy blushed--praise was sweet, but
embarrassing.  "I bet they didn't tell you a
word about their goodness to me, sir," he
returned, "I never could make that up, no
matter what I do."

Everything was satisfactorily explained
over a good dinner.  When you come to
think of it, a good dinner makes many things
seem more satisfactory.  Ruth and Elizabeth
cooked this one, the Babe set the table,
and all three girls kept jumping up from
their places to run around and hug the tall
soldier father, to be sure that he was real,
and not just a beautiful dream.  Mrs. Spooner
sat at the head of the table, with a
color and radiance in her face that had long
been absent.  Harvey Grannis talked more
than anybody had ever heard him.  He
made good his promise of the blue-eyed
pinto pony to little Harvie--though he
offered no further suggestion as to the
shooting of Queen Berengaria.

"Pinto's half Arab," he urged, "I broke
him myself--wouldn't let the broncho-buster
touch him--he's as gentle as a dog."

All the elders at the table knew that
Harvey Grannis was an excellent horseman,
and kind to animals, whatever he might
be to his fellow-men.  They regarded the
gift as highly as the Babe was certain to do
when she had fully made the acquaintance
of the spotted pony.

"I'm awfully obliged to you, Uncle
Harvey," she said at last.  "If you don't
mind I'll change his name to Prince--as
though he was Queen Berengaria's son, you
know.  I expect I'll be mighty glad to have
him, because he'll be able to carry me to
school.  I couldn't go when we were at the
ranch before, because it was 'most too far
for Queen Berengaria to come every day,
and she's so slow I'd have been sure to be
tardy--I don't like tardy-marks."

When Harvey Grannis said good-bye, it
was plain they were entering on a new era
of friendship with the lonely man.
Apparently he would be willing to benefit his
sister's family in the way that pleased them--not
insisting that it should be exclusively
a way that pleased him.

When Grannis was gone Roy returned to
his work at the grocery and the Babe finally
quieted down to her lessons.  Mrs. Spooner
asked Ruth if she would not help her
younger sister with them, leaving Elizabeth
to have a little talk with her father.  The
tall eldest girl followed her mother into the
other room, and soon found herself seated
between the two people who were so dear
to her, the only parents she had ever known.
Thus she listened to a strange story told
Captain Spooner by a soldier of his own
regiment--and who had died in Cuba.

"I don't remember him much on the way
out, or in camp, except that he was a very
tall man, well set up and good-looking--a
fine type of Englishman," the Captain said.
"He kept himself to himself, the other men
said, and although I remembered afterward
that he had looked at me curiously once or
twice, I couldn't be sure that I'd ever seen
him before until he spoke to me one day.
You'd sent me a lot of little snap-shots,
Elizabeth, and I was showing them to some
of the officers and mentioned your name.
I saw him turn, and after awhile he came and
asked to look at the pictures.  I noticed
then that he didn't pay much attention to
any of them but yours, and when he handed
them back he said hastily that he wanted to
have a talk with me.  He had the reserved
English way, but I could see that he was
much upset.  The next day we had a pretty
hot little skirmish, getting some of us for
good, and wounding a good many.  After
the fight was over they sent for me to go to
the field hospital, and there he was, wounded
badly--knowing he had to die!"

Elizabeth was strangely shaken during
this story, and she held fast to her mother's
hand, as though to make sure they were
not giving her up.  Instinct told her of
whom Captain Spooner was speaking, and
when he went on she needed no further
explanation.

"He was an Englishman, sure enough,
Elizabeth, of good family, but a younger son,
of course, and without any money.  It seems
he married the daughter of the rector of his
parish, and she hadn't anything either.
They came over to America--to Texas--thinking
to make a fortune, but found hard
times and bad luck instead.  His young
wife died while they were on their way to
California, traveling in a wagon, and he
was so broken-hearted and helpless that he
left his baby girl with--well, he left her
with a mighty good woman, and I guess he
knew it!"

Captain Spooner glanced at his wife;
Elizabeth dropped her head on her mother's
slender shoulder and cried softly.

"It makes me feel so sorry," she
whispered.  "Yet I'm glad too--glad I
belong to you, even if my father did desert me!"

"He didn't, Elizabeth.  That is, not
knowingly," Captain Spooner explained
gently.  "When he went away from here
he had promised to send money for your
keep, and he said he would come back for
you.  He did send some money, then all at
once it ceased, and we never heard from
him again.  It seems he got word that you
were dead.  Some movers coming through
told him of a baby that had died, and they
mixed it up some way.  He was sick and
down on his luck at the time, and failed to
write to us, but he never would have done
it if he'd known his daughter was living.
Philip Maude wasn't that kind of a man.
He was a gentleman, born and bred, and a
brave man always."

"O, Father--I love to hear you say that!"
said Elizabeth.  "I'll always be glad to
think of him as brave and kind.  But
I thought--Cousin Hannah said--wasn't
the name *Mudd*?"

"Mudd?  No, indeed.  His name was
Maude--M-a-u-d-e.  A very good name,
too.  What on earth made you think it
was Mudd?"

"Cousin Hannah told me so," sobbed
Elizabeth.  "And O, now I can tell you
when it's all over--I've been so bitterly
ashamed and miserable to know that I,
who used to really fool myself into thinking
I was better than other people, was just a
miserable mover's child--and that my name
was Mudd!"

"Cousin Hannah always did pronounce
it that way," said Mrs. Spooner, "she may
have thought it was spelled so--it's too bad
to think how you suffered for her mistake."  The
motherly eyes overflowed, realizing how
sensitive Elizabeth, who adored pretty
names, must have felt at being saddled with
such a grotesquely ugly one.

"So Philip Maude thought his daughter
was dead till I showed those pictures.  He
told me that when he saw the little photograph
it was like looking at a picture of his
dead wife.  He saw how much I loved you,
and how proud I was of you, and he had a
struggle in his mind to know whether he
ought to claim you after all these years;
but he had decided that he must give you
up when the fight came on, and the decision
was taken out of his bands.  The reason he
sent for me at the last was that he had, a
few weeks before he enlisted, got notice of
a small inheritance that had fallen to him
in England.  It won't be more than
twenty-five thousand dollars--five thousand
pounds, he called it--but he made his will,
and gave me his papers so that you might
prove your right to it, and he said that you
might want to go home to your own people
in England.  He sent you this ring, and
this broken watch chain--the watch itself
was shattered by the bullet that gave him
his death wound."

Elizabeth took the ring and chain he
handed her and wept over them.  They
seemed to bring the father she had never
consciously seen very close to her.  It was
not as though he took this father's place,
but rather as if he were some one among
her ancestors, far back, almost in another life.

"I hope I may go there some time," she
said at last.  "But you and mother are the
only father and mother I can ever have--and
my home must be here with you."

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The Spooners stayed on in the old adobe
through the winter.  There was little to
do at the ranch, and they were really more
comfortable where they were.  The first
installment of Elizabeth's income arrived
from England about holiday time, and made
things most wonderfully joyous in the
Spooner family.  It was comical to see how
the new state of affairs impressed Maudie
Pratt.  Grandmother's diamond ring
became a small matter indeed compared to
the small packet of really excellent old
jewelry that was forwarded to Elizabeth.
The fact that she added Maude to her
name, simply calling herself Elizabeth
Maude Spooner, was rather a disappointment.
Maudie Pratt, under similar
circumstances, would have promptly dropped
the Spooner altogether.

The wise little mother looked on and
breathed many a sigh of thankfulness that
Elizabeth's good fortune had not come to
her before she was tried and proven.  When
she saw her daughter choose wisely, and
behave modestly, and carry her new honors
with simple graciousness, she was aware
that the year of discipline which had
preceded the reward, had made it a reward
indeed.

When they all went out again to the
ranch, Elizabeth insisted on investing some
of her money in making the home beautiful
and comfortable for them all.  Harvey
Grannis admired her greatly for doing so,
yet he was in some sense jealous, and being
a man of means he attempted, with a
simplicity that sometimes made them all
laugh, to match any act of generosity on
Elizabeth's part with one of his own.
There was soon a commodious, well-built
house, a beautiful and properly irrigated
lawn, with beds of brilliant flowers where
once only the cactus could be coaxed to
bloom.  These out-door luxuries were made
possible by that almost unattainable thing
in such a country--plenty of water, for
Harvey Grannis made his namesake a deed
to the pasture containing the big water-hole.
More land was bought and added to the
ranch, as Captain Spooner prospered, and
with the luck of 'him that hath,' money
came in until the Spooner brand was
perhaps the best in the country, and of such
fine quality that it was the pride of old
Jonah's heart.

The question of education was one of the
first things to come up in the affairs of
these young people, and Elizabeth declared
that her income was to be used for schooling
the whole bunch--and in the bunch she
included Roy Lambert.  That independent
young man, however, preferred to work
his way, as many an independent American
boy has done before him.  He chose an
agricultural college, for he believed that the
cattle business would gradually diminish,
and that all of the ranches would be forced
into more or less farming as the years went
on.  His ideas have proved correct, and as
he is a skilled and educated farmer, and a
natural manager, Captain Spooner has never
seen the time when he was willing to give
up the claim they had on him at the time
that Mrs. Spooner called him her adopted son.

Most laughable of all, Harvey Grannis
takes a great pride and personal satisfaction
in Roy's success.  To hear him talk about
it one would think he had brought the boy
west and placed him in his sister's
home--as indeed he did, though quite unwittingly.
With the lapse of years Harvey has become
gentler in his dealings with people, and
more amenable.  If he ever quarrels--and
being Harvey Grannis, of course he does
sometimes--the Babe immediately acts as
peacemaker, and he declares that his nieces
are the finest girls in the state of Texas, and
that the Babe is to inherit every acre and
hoof of his possessions!

These greater advantages came to the
Babe earlier than to the other girls, and she
was the only one of the three who cared to
go to an eastern college and take a degree.
She was preparing herself for her chosen
career as a writer of stories for children,
finding in that work free vent for her
exuberant fancy.

The year Ruth was nineteen she visited
Mary in Oklahoma, and came back engaged
to her brother-in-law's brother, a young
ranchman of good looks and qualities, and
fairly prosperous.  She now lives on a
ranch of her own, and, with Mary, makes
frequent visits to the home folks, where the
circle is still unbroken, even old Jonah still
being spry and happy, and delighting in
relating his wonderful war stories as of old.

When Elizabeth finally left for England,
partly to see her people--who consisted of
somewhat distant relatives, and partly for
a course of study, Roy felt that he would
not be honorable in asking her to consent
to an engagement.  He told her that he
was sure she would find her ideals changing
very much when she was among her own
people, in such surroundings as were really
befitting to her.

But she came back to Silver Spur, a
well-trained and popular painter of miniatures,
having chosen this for her profession.  She
came back to Roy, and to the dear parents
who were, after all, more her own people
than those she had left behind her in England.

And it turned out that Elizabeth's real
profession is not art but home-making.  She
and Roy are married and live still at Silver
Spur, perfectly happy with each other, and
radiating happiness about them by the love
and forethought of beautiful, unselfish
natures.

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   (THE END.)

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