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Title: The Little Colonel in Arizona

Author: Annie Fellows Johnston

Illustrator: Etheldred B. Barry

Release Date: May 2, 2012 [EBook #39599]

Language: English

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[Illustration: THE DUCK HUNT

    (_See page 168_)]




The Little Colonel in Arizona

By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON


    Author of "The Little Colonel Series," "Big Brother,"
    "Ole Mammy's Torment," "Joel: A Boy of Galilee,"
    "Asa Holmes," etc.

    Illustrated by ETHELDRED B. BARRY

    [Illustration]

    BOSTON * L. C. PAGE
    & COMPANY * PUBLISHERS




    _Copyright, 1904_
    BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

    (INCORPORATED)

    _All rights reserved_

    Published September, 1904

    _Ninth Impression, March, 1908_




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                   PAGE
    I. MARY TELLS ALL SHE KNOWS                1
    II. A ROBINSON CRUSOE OF THE DESERT       19
    III. A DAY AT SCHOOL                      38
    IV. WARE'S WIGWAM                         56
    V. WHAT A LETTER BROUGHT ABOUT            78
    VI. WASH-DAY AND WASHINGTON               94
    VII. A SURPRISE                          116
    VIII. IN THE DESERT OF WAITING           137
      IX. LLOYD'S DUCK HUNT                  162
       X. THE SCHOOL OF THE BEES             179
      XI. THE NEW BOARDER AT LEE'S RANCH     193
     XII. PHIL HAS A FINGER IN THE PIE       212
    XIII. A CHANGE OF FORTUNE                231
     XIV. THE LOST TURQUOISES                253
      XV. LOST ON THE DESERT                 272
     XVI. BACK TO DIXIE                      293




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                  PAGE
    THE DUCK HUNT (_See page 168_)                       _Frontispiece_
    "SHE PROCEEDED WITH A JOYFUL HEART TO PAINT THE AFRICAN LION"   51
    "'WE ALLEE SAMEE LAK CHINAMEN,' HE SAID"                        94
    "'I THOUGHT WE'D NEVAH, NEVAH GET HEAH!'"                      128
    "ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF THE SUNNY AFTERNOON"                 162
    "SHE LEANED OVER TO OFFER HIM THE LITTLE BASKET"               209
    "HE WAS HOLDING OUT BOTH FOREFINGERS"                          244
    "CLATTERING DOWN THE ROAD AS FAST AS HIS FEET COULD CARRY
         HIM"                                                      279




THE LITTLE COLONEL IN ARIZONA




CHAPTER I.

MARY TELLS ALL SHE KNOWS


"JOYCE," said Jack Ware, stopping beside his sister's seat in the long,
Western-bound train, "I wish you'd go back into the observation-car, and
make Mary stop talking. She's telling all she knows to a couple of
strangers."

"Why don't you do it?" asked Joyce, looking up from her magazine with a
teasing smile. "That dignified scowl of yours ought to frighten anything
into silence."

"I did try it," confessed Jack. "I frowned and shook my head at her as I
passed, but all the good it did was to start her to talking about _me_.
'That's my brother Jack,' I heard her say, and her voice went through
the car like a fine-pointed needle. 'Isn't he big for fourteen? He's
been wearing long trousers for nearly a year.' They both turned to look
at me, and everybody smiled, and I was so embarrassed that I fell all
over myself getting out of sight. And it was a girl she said it to," he
continued, wrathfully. "A real pretty girl, about my age. The fellow
with her is her brother, I reckon. They look enough alike. He's a cadet
from some military school. You can tell by his uniform. They laugh at
everything that Mary says, and that makes her go on all the worse. So if
you don't want them to know all our family history, past, present, and
to come, you'd better go back and shut up that chatterbox. You know what
Mary's like when she gets started."

"Yes, I know," sighed Joyce, "but I don't dare move now. Norman has just
fallen asleep, and he's been so restless all day that I don't want him
to waken until mamma has had her nap." She glanced down at the little
six-year-old brother stretched out on the seat beside her with his head
in her lap, and then across the aisle at her mother, lying with her
white face hidden among the shawls and pillows.

"If I send for Mary to come back here, she'll flop around until she
wakes them both. Can't you get her out on to the rear platform for
awhile? I should think she would enjoy riding out there on one of those
little camp-stools. Slip one of those oranges into your pocket, and
whisper to her to follow you out and guess what you have for her."

"Well, I'll try," said Jack, dubiously, "but I'm almost sure she won't
budge. It isn't every day she gets an audience like that. It flatters
her to have them laugh at everything she says, and as sure as I stop and
speak to her she'll say something that I don't want to hear."

"Oh, never mind, then," said Joyce. "They are strangers, and probably
we'll never see them again, so it won't make any difference. Sit down
here and forget about them. You can have this magazine in a minute, just
as soon as I finish reading this half-page."

But Jack did mind. He could not forget the amused glances that the
pretty girl had exchanged with her big brother, and after standing
irresolutely in the aisle a moment, he strolled back to the
observation-car. Slipping into a wicker chair near the door, he sat
waiting for Mary to look in his direction, so that he could beckon her
to come to him.

Half the passengers had gone to sleep and forgotten that they were being
whirled across the great American Desert as fast as the limited
express-train could carry them. Some were reading, and some gazing out
of the windows at the monotonous wastes of sand. The only ones who
really seemed to be enjoying the journey were his small sister and her
audience of two. She sat on a footstool in the aisle, just in front of
them, a box of candy in her lap, and a look of supreme satisfaction on
her face. Two little braids of blond hair, tied with big bows of blue
ribbon, bobbed over her shoulders as she talked. Jack was too far away
to hear what she said, but his scowl deepened whenever the girl
exchanged amused glances with her brother.

"This candy is almost as good as the fudge we used to make at home every
Saturday afternoon," said Mary, putting a chocolate-covered marshmallow
in her mouth, and gravely running her tongue around her lips. "But we'll
never again make any more fudge in that house."

"Why not, dear?" asked the girl, with encouraging interest. This child
was the most diverting thing she had found on the long journey.

"Oh, everything has come to an end now. Joyce says you can never go back
when you've burned your bridges behind you. It was certainly burning our
bridges when we sold the little brown house, for of course we could
never go back with strangers living in it. It was almost like a funeral
when we started to the train, and looked back for the last time. I
cried, because there was the Christmas-tree standing on the porch, with
the strings of popcorn and cranberries on it. We put it out for the
birds, you know, when we were done with it. When I saw how lonesome it
looked, standing out in the snow, and remembered that it was the last
Christmas-tree we'd ever have there, and that we didn't have a home any
more, why I guess _anybody_ would have cried."

"Why did you sell the little home if you loved it so?" asked the girl.
It was not from any desire to pry into a stranger's affairs that she
asked, but merely to keep the child talking.

"Oh, mamma was so ill. She had pneumonia, and there are so many
blizzards in Kansas, you know, that the doctor said she'd never get rid
of her cough if she stayed in Plainsville, and that maybe if we didn't
go to a warm place she wouldn't live till spring. So Mr. Link bought the
house the very next day, so that we could have enough money to go. He's
a lawyer. It used to be Link and Ware on the office door before papa
died. He's always been good to us because he was papa's partner, and he
gave Jack a perfectly grand gun when he found we were coming out among
the Indians.

"Then the neighbours came in and helped us pack, and we left in a hurry.
To-morrow we'll be to the place where we are going, and we'll begin to
live in tents on New Year's Day. You'd never think this was the last day
of the old year, would you, it's so warm. I 'spose we'll be mixed up all
the time now about the calendar, coming to such a different climate."

There was a pause while another marshmallow disappeared, then she
prattled on again. "It's to Lee's Ranch we are going, out in Arizona.
It's a sort of boarding-camp for sick people. Mrs. Lee keeps it. She's
our minister's sister, and he wrote to her, and she's going to take us
cheaper than she does most people, because there's so many of us. Joyce
and Jack and Holland and Norman and mamma and me makes an even
half-dozen. But we're going to keep house as soon as our things come and
we can get a place, and then I'll be glad that Jack has his gun. He
can't shoot very well yet, unless it's at something big like a stable
door, but you always feel safer, when there's Indians around, if you've
got something to bang at them."

Here she lowered her voice confidentially. "Holland scared Norman and
me most to death one night. We were sitting on the rug in front of the
fire, before the lamp was lighted, saying what would we do s'posen an
Indian should come to the camp sometime, and try to scalp us, and just
when we were so scared we didn't dare look around behind us, he rolled
out from under the bed where he'd been hiding, and grabbed us by the
hair, with the awfullest whoop, that made us feel as if we'd been dipped
in ice-water. Why, we didn't stop yelling for half an hour. Norman had
the nightmare that night. We never did find out how Joyce punished
Holland, but what she did to him was plenty, for he hasn't scared us
since, not yet, though you never know when he's going to.

"Joyce isn't afraid of anything on earth. You ought to hear about the
way she played ghost once, when she was in France. And she just talked
right up to the old monsieur who owned the Gate of the Giant Scissors,
and told him what she thought of him."

"How old is this Joyce?" asked the tall young fellow whom his sister
called Phil. "She sounds interesting, don't you think, Elsie?" he said,
leaning over to help himself to a handful of candy.

Elsie nodded with a smile, and Mary hastened to give the desired
information. "Oh, she's fifteen, going on sixteen, and she _is_
interesting. She can paint the loveliest pictures you ever saw. She was
going to be an artist until all this happened, and she had to leave
school. Nobody but me knows how bad it made her feel to do that. I found
her crying in the stable-loft when I went up to say good-bye to the
black kitten, and she made me cross my heart and body I'd never tell, so
mamma thinks that she doesn't mind it at all.

"Things have gone wrong at our house ever since I had the mumps," she
began again, when she had slowly crunched two burnt almonds. "Holland
sprained his wrist and mamma nearly died with pneumonia and Norman upset
the clothes-horse on the stove and burnt up a whole week's ironing. And
after that Jack had both ears frosted in a blizzard, and Bob, our
darling little fox-terrier that Joyce brought from Kentucky, was
poisoned."

"That _was_ a list of misfortunes," exclaimed Phil, sympathetically,
"enough to discourage anybody."

"Oh, at our house we never get discouraged to _stay_," answered Mary.
"Of course we feel that way at first, but Joyce always says 'Remember
the Vicar,' and then we stiffen."

"The vicar," echoed Phil, much puzzled.

"Yes, the Vicar of Wakefield, you know. Don't you remember what bad luck
they all had, about the green spectacles and everything, and he said,
'_Let us be inflexible, and fortune will at last change in our
favour!_'"

"Was there ever anything funnier!" exclaimed Phil, in an aside, as this
bit of wisdom was rolled out with such a dramatic toss of the head, that
the big blue bows on the little blond braids bobbed wildly. "The idea of
a child like that reading the 'Vicar of Wakefield.'"

"Oh, I didn't read him myself," answered Mary, eager to be entirely
truthful. "Joyce read it aloud to all the family last winter, and since
then we've all tried to do as the Vicar did, be inflexible when troubles
come. Even Norman knows that if you'll swallow your sobs and _stiffen_
when you bump your head, or anything, that it doesn't hurt half so bad
as when you just let loose and howl."

Jack started to his feet when he heard the laugh that followed, sure
that Mary was saying something that ought to be left unsaid. He reached
her just in time to hear her remark, "We're going to eat in the
dining-car to-night. Our lunch has all given out, and I'm glad of it,
for I never did eat in a dining-car, and I've always wanted to. We're
going to have ice-cream, if it doesn't cost too much."

Jack's face was crimson as he bent down and whispered in Mary's ear, and
it grew several shades redder as she calmly answered aloud, "No, I don't
want to go out on the platform. It's blowing so hard, I'll get my eyes
full of sand."

He bent again to whisper, this time savagely, and then turned back
toward the other car, not waiting for her answer. But it followed him
shrilly in an indignant tone: "It's no such a thing, Jack Ware! I'm not
telling all I know."

A few minutes later a freckle-faced boy of twelve appeared in the door,
looking up and down the car with keen gray eyes. The moment his glance
fell on Mary, he started down the aisle toward her with such an air of
determination that she started up in dismay.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "There's Holland beckoning for me. Now I've
got to go."

"Why should you go for him rather than Jack?" asked Phil. "He isn't
nearly so big."

"You don't know Holland," said Mary, taking a step forward. "He doesn't
mind making a scene anywhere we happen to be. If he was told to bring
me, he'd do it, if he had to drag me down the aisle by my hair.
Good-bye. I've had a mighty nice time, and I'm much obliged for the
candy."

The Ware family were already seated in the dining-room when Phil and
Elsie went in to dinner a little later. Mary, over her soup, was giving
an enthusiastic account of her new acquaintances. "They're going to
their grandfather's in California," she said. "It's the most beautiful
place you ever heard of, with goldfish in the fountain, and Gold of
Ophir roses in the garden, and Dago, their old pet monkey, is there.
They had to send him away from home because he got into so much
mischief. And Miss Elsie Tremont, that's her name, is all in black
because her Great-Aunt Patricia is dead. Her Aunt Patricia kept house
for them, but now they live at their grandfather's. Mr. Phil is only
seventeen, but he's six feet tall, and looks so old that I thought maybe
he was thirty."

"Gracious, Mary, how did you find out so much?" asked Joyce, with a
warning shake of the head at Norman, who was crumbling his bread into
his soup.

"Oh, I asked him if he was married, and he laughed, and said he was only
seventeen, just a schoolboy, a cadet in a military academy out in
California. There they are now!" she added, excitedly, as the waiter
pulled out two chairs at the little table across the aisle.

Both the newcomers smiled at Mary, who beamed broadly in response. Then
they gave a quick side-glance at the rest of the family. "What a
sweet-looking woman the little mother is," said Elsie, in a low tone,
"and Joyce _is_ interesting, but I wouldn't say she is exactly pretty,
would you?"

"Um, I don't know," answered Phil, after another politely careless
glance in her direction. "She has a face you like to keep looking at.
It's so bright and pleasant, and her eyes are lovely. She'd be jolly
good company, I imagine, a sort of a surprise-party, always doing and
saying unusual things."

In the same casual way, Joyce was taking note of them. She felt strongly
drawn toward the pretty girl in black, and wished that they were going
to the same place, so that she might make her acquaintance. Once when
they were all laughing at something Norman said, she looked up and
caught her eye, and they both smiled. Then Phil looked across with such
an understanding gleam of humour in his eyes that she almost smiled at
him, but checked herself, and looked down in her plate, remembering that
the handsome cadet was a stranger.

The train stopped at a junction just as Mary finished her ice-cream,
which she had been eating as slowly as possible, in order to prolong the
pleasure. Finding that there would be a wait of nearly half an hour,
Joyce persuaded her mother to go back to the rear platform of the
observation-car, and sit out awhile, in the fresh air. Although the sun
was down, it was so warm that Mrs. Ware scarcely needed the shawl Joyce
drew around her shoulders.

"I can't believe that this is the last day of December," she said to
Mary, as Joyce hurried into the station to make some inquiry of the
ticket-agent. "The last day of the old year," she added. "These
electric-lights and the band playing over there in the park, and all the
passengers promenading up and down in front of the station, bareheaded,
make it seem like a summer resort."

Mary peered after the promenading passengers wistfully. The boys had
disappeared to watch the engine take water, and there was no one for her
to walk with. Just then, Phil and Elsie Tremont, sauntering along,
caught sight of her wistful little face.

"Don't you want to come too?" asked Elsie, pausing. "You'll sleep better
for a little exercise."

"Oh, yes!" was the delighted reply. "May I, mamma? It's Miss Elsie
Tremont, that I told you about, that ran away with a monkey and a
music-box when she was a little bit of a girl."

"I'm afraid that with such an introduction you'll think I'm not a proper
person to trust your daughter with, Mrs. Ware," said Elsie, laughing,
"but I assure you I'll never run away again. That experience quite cured
me."

"Probably Mary has given you just as alarming an impression of us,"
answered Mrs. Ware. "She has never learned to regard any one as a
stranger, and all the world is her friend to confide in."

"Wouldn't you like to walk a little while, too?" asked Elsie, stirred by
some faint memory of a delicate white face like this one, that years ago
used to smile out at her from a hammock in the Gold of Ophir rose
garden. She was only five years old the last time she saw her mother,
but the dim memory was a very sweet one.

"Yes, come! It will do you good," urged Phil, cordially, influenced
partly by the same memory, and partly by the thought that here was a
chance to make the acquaintance of Joyce as well. According to her
little sister she was an unusually interesting girl, and the glimpse he
had had of her himself confirmed that opinion.

So it happened to Joyce's great astonishment, as she hurried back to the
train, she met her mother walking slowly along beside Elsie. Phil, with
Mary chattering to him like an amusing little magpie, was just behind
them. Almost before she knew how it came about, she was walking with
them, listening first to Elsie, then to Phil, as they told of the
boarding-school she was going back to in California, and the Military
Academy in which he was a cadet. They had been back home to spend the
Christmas vacation with their father, whom they did not expect to see
again for a long time. He was a physician, and now on his way to Berlin,
where he expected to spend a year or two in scientific research.

At the warning call of all aboard, they hurried back to the car just as
the boys came scrambling up the steps. Acquaintances grow almost as
rapidly on these long overland journeys across the continent as they do
on shipboard. The girls regretted the fact that they had not found each
other earlier, but Jack and Phil soon made up for lost time. Phil, who
had hunted wild goats among the rocks of Catalina Island, and Jack, who
expected unlimited shooting of quail and ducks at Lee's Ranch, were not
long in exchanging invitations for future hunting together, if either
should happen to stray into the other's vicinity.

"I feel as if I had known you always," said Elsie to Joyce, as they
separated, regretfully, at bedtime, wondering if they ever would meet
again. "I wish you were going to the boarding-school with me."

"I wish you were going to stop in Arizona," answered Joyce. "Maybe you
can come out to the ranch sometime, when you are on your way back East."

"I think that we ought to all sit up together to see the old year out
and the new year in," protested Mary, indignant at being hurried off to
bed at half-past seven.

"You'll see the change all right," remarked Jack, "and you'll have a
chance to make a night of it. We have to get off at Maricopa a little
after midnight, and there's no telling when that train for Phoenix will
come along. They say it's always behind time."

Late that night, Elsie, wakened by the stopping of the train, looked at
her watch. The new year had just dawned. A brakeman went through the car
with a lantern. There were strange voices outside, a confusion of calls,
and the curtains of her berth swayed and shook as a number of people
hurried down the aisle, laden with baggage. Somebody tripped over a pair
of shoes, left too far out in the aisle, and somebody muttered a
complaint about always being wakened at Maricopa by people who had no
more consideration for the travelling public than to make their changes
in the dead of night.

"Maricopa," she thought, starting up on her elbow. "That is where the
Wares are to get off." Raising the window-shade, she peered out into the
night. Yes, there they were, just going into the station. Jack and
Holland weighted down with baggage, Joyce helping the sweet-faced little
mother with one hand, and dragging the drowsy Norman after her with the
other, Mary sleepily bringing up the rear with her hat tipped over one
eye, and her shoe-strings tripping her at every step.

"Bless her little soul, she's the funniest, fattest little chatterbox of
a girl I ever saw," thought Elsie, as she watched her stumble into the
station. "Good-bye, little vicar," she whispered, waving her hand. "May
you always keep inflexible. I wonder if I'll ever see any of them again.
I wish I were in a big family like that. They do have such good times
together."

As the train pulled slowly out and went thundering on into the
darkness, she tried to go to sleep again, but for a long time, whenever
she closed her eyes, she saw the little house in Kansas that Mary had
described so vividly. There it stood, empty and deserted in the snow,
with the pathetic little Christmas-tree, left for the birds. And far
away, the family who loved it so dearly were facing blithely and bravely
the untried New Year, in which they were to make for themselves another
home, somewhere out on the lonely desert.

"Oh, I do hope they'll keep 'inflexible,'" was Elsie's last waking
thought. "I do hope they'll have a happy New Year."




CHAPTER II.

A ROBINSON CRUSOE OF THE DESERT


JOYCE stood in the door of the little adobe house, and looked out across
the desert with tears in her eyes. If _this_ was to be their home
through all the dreary years that stretched ahead of them, it hardly
seemed worth while to go on living.

Jack, in the bare unfurnished room behind her, was noisily wielding a
hatchet, opening the boxes and barrels of household goods which had
followed them by freight. He did not know which one held his gun, but he
was determined to find it before the sun went down.

For nearly three weeks they had been at Lee's Ranch, half a mile farther
down the road, waiting for the goods to come, and to find a place where
they could set up a home of their own. Boarding for a family of six was
far too expensive to be afforded long. Now the boxes had arrived, and
they had found a place, the only one for rent anywhere near the ranch.
Joyce felt sick at heart as she looked around her.

"Here it is at last," called Jack, triumphantly, dropping the hatchet
and throwing pillows and bedding out of the box in reckless haste to
reach his most cherished possession, the fine hammerless shotgun which
Mr. Link had given him Christmas. He had intended to carry it with him
on the journey, in its carved leather case, but in the confusion of the
hurried packing, some well-meaning neighbour had nailed it up in one of
the boxes while he was absent, and there had been no time to rescue it.
He had worried about it ever since.

"Oh, you beauty!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hand along the polished
stock as he drew it from the case. Sitting on the floor tailor-fashion,
he began whistling cheerfully as he fitted the parts together.

"Joyce," he called, peering down the barrels to see if any speck of rust
had gathered in them, "do you suppose we brought any machine-oil with
us? I'll uncrate the sewing-machine if you think that the can is likely
to be in one of the drawers."

"I don't know," answered Joyce, in such a hopeless tone that Jack
lowered his gun-barrels and stared at her in astonishment. Her back was
toward him, but her voice certainly sounded choked with tears. It was so
unusual for Joyce to cry that he felt that something very serious must
be the cause.

"What's the matter, sister?" he inquired. "You aren't sick, are you?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, with a sob, turning and throwing herself down on
the pile of pillows he had just unpacked. "I'm sick of everything in
this awful country! I'm sick of the desert, and of seeing nothing but
invalids and sand and cactus and jack-rabbits wherever I go. And I'm
sick of the prospect of living in this little hole of a mud-house, and
working like a squaw, and never doing anything or being anything worth
while. If I thought I had to go on all my life this way, I'd want to die
right now!"

Jack viewed her uneasily. "Goodness, Joyce! I never knew you to go all
to pieces this way before. You've always been the one to preach to us
when things went wrong, that if we'd be inflexible that fortune would at
last change in our favour."

"Inflexible fiddlesticks!" stormed Joyce from the depths of a bolster,
where she had hidden her face, "I've been holding out against fate so
long that I can't do it any more, and I'm going to give up, right here
and now!"

"Then I don't know what will become of the rest of us," answered Jack,
raising his empty gun to aim at a butcher-bird in the fig-tree outside
the door. "It's you that has always kept things cheerful when we were
down in the mouth."

Joyce sat up and wiped her eyes. "I think that it must be that old
camel-back mountain out there that makes me feel so hopeless. It is so
depressing to see it kneeling there in the sand, day after day, like a
poor old broken-down beast of burden, unable to move another step. It is
just like us. Fate is too much for it."

Jack's glance followed hers through the open door. Straight and level,
the desert stretched away toward the horizon, where a circle of
mountains seemed to rise abruptly from the sands, and shut them in.
There was Squaw's Peak on the left, cold and steely blue, and over on
the right the bare buttes, like mounds of red ore, and just in front was
the mountain they must face every time they looked from the door. Some
strange freak of nature had given it the form of a giant camel, five
miles long. There it knelt in the sand, with patient outstretched neck,
and such an appearance of hopeless resignation to its lot, that Joyce
was not the only one who found it depressing. More than one invalid,
sent to the surrounding ranches for the life-giving atmosphere of
Arizona, had turned his back on it with a shiver of premonition, saying,
"It's just like me! Broken-down, and left to die on the desert. Neither
of us will ever get away."

It made no difference to Jack what shape the mountains took. He could
not understand Joyce's sensitiveness to her surroundings. But it made
him uncomfortable to see her so despondent. He sat hugging his gun in
silence a moment, not knowing how to answer her, and then began idly
aiming it first in one direction, then another. Presently his glance
happened to rest upon a battered book that had fallen from one of the
boxes. He drew it toward him with his foot. It was open at a familiar
picture, and on the opposite page was a paragraph which he had read so
many times, that he could almost repeat it from memory.

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "Here's an old friend who was in as bad a fix as
we are, Joyce, and he lived through it."

Leaning over, without picking up the book from the floor, he began
reading from the page, printed in the large type of a child's
picture-book:

"'September 30, 1609. I, poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe, being
shipwrecked during a dreadful storm in the offing, came on shore this
dismal, unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all
the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead.
All the rest of the day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal
circumstances I was brought to, viz., I had neither house, clothes,
weapons, nor place to fly to, and in despair of any relief saw nothing
but death before me, either that I should be devoured by wild beasts,
murdered by savages, or starved to death for want of food.'"

A long pause followed. Then Joyce sat up, looking teased, and held out
her hand for the book. "I don't mind old Crusoe's preaching me a
sermon," she said, as she turned the tattered leaves. "Now he's done it,
I'll quit 'afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought
to.' I've wished a thousand times, when I was smaller, that I could have
been in his place, and had all his interesting adventures. And to think,
here we are at last, in almost as bad a plight as he was. Only we have a
weapon," she added, with a mischievous glance at the gun Jack was
holding.

"And that means food, too," he answered, proudly, "for I expect to kill
many a quail and duck with this."

"Oh, we're better off than Crusoe in a thousand ways, I suppose, if we'd
only stop to count our blessings," she answered, now ready to take a
more cheerful view of life since she had had her little outburst of
rebellion. "He didn't have a Chinaman driving by with fresh vegetables
twice a week, as we will have, and we have clothes, and a house, such as
it is, and a place to fly to, for Lee's Ranch will always be open to us
if we need a refuge."

"So we can start at the place where Crusoe was when he really began to
enjoy his Island of Despair," said Jack. "Shall I go on unpacking these
things? I stopped when you announced that you were going to give up and
die, for I thought there wouldn't be any use trying to do anything, with
you in the dumps like that."

Joyce looked around the dingy room. "It's not worth while to unpack till
the place has been scrubbed from top to bottom. If we're going to make a
home of it, we'll have to begin right. The landlord won't do anything,
and we could hardly expect him to, considering the small amount of rent
we pay, but I don't see how we can live in it without fresh paper and
paint."

"I wish we'd find a ship cast up on the sands of the desert to-morrow,"
said Jack, "that would have all sorts of supplies and tools in it. The
shipwrecks helped old Robinson out amazingly. I'd make a bookcase if we
did, and put up shelves and all sorts of things. This would be a fine
place to show what I learned in the manual training-school. We need
benches and rustic seats out under those umbrella-trees."

"We'll have to buy some tools," said Joyce. "Let's make out a list of
things we need, and go to town early in the morning. Mrs. Lee said we
could borrow Bogus and the surrey to-morrow."

"All right," assented Jack, ready for anything that promised change.

"And _Jack_!" she exclaimed, after a long slow survey of the room,
"let's paint and paper this place ourselves! I'm sure we can do it.
There's a tape measure in one of the machine drawers. Suppose you get it
out and measure the room, so we'll know how much paper to buy."

Joyce was her old brave, cheery self again now, giving orders like a
major-general, and throwing herself into the work at hand with
contagious enthusiasm. With the stub of a pencil Jack found in his
pocket, she began making a memorandum on the fly-leaf of Robinson
Crusoe. "Paint, turpentine, brushes, screws, nails, saw, mop, broom,
scrubbing-brush, soap," she wrote rapidly.

"And a hatchet," added Jack. "This one belongs to the Mexican at the
ranch. And, oh, yes, an axe. He says that Holland and I can get all the
wood we need right here on the desert, without its costing us a cent, if
we're willing to chop it; mesquite roots, you know, and greasewood."

"It's fortunate we can get something without paying for it," commented
Joyce, as she added an axe to the list. Then she sat studying the
possibilities of the room, while Jack knocked the crate from the
machine, found the tape measure, and did a sum in arithmetic to find the
amount of paper it would take to cover the walls.

"I can see just how it is going to look when we are all through," she
said, presently. "When this old dark woodwork is painted white, and
these dismal walls are covered with fresh light paper, and there are
clean, airy curtains at the windows, it won't seem like the same place.
Mamma mustn't see it till it is all in order."

Exhausted by the journey, Mrs. Ware had been too weak to worry over
their future, or even to wonder what would become of them, and had
handed over the little bank-book to Joyce.

"Make it go just as far as it will, dear," she said. "You are too young
to have such a load laid on your shoulders, but I see no other way now."
Joyce had taken up the burden of responsibility so bravely that no one
but Jack knew of her moments of discouragement, and he was forgetting
her recent tears in her present enthusiasm.

"Oh, I wish it was to-morrow," she exclaimed, "and we had all our
supplies bought so that we could begin."

"So do I," answered Jack. "But it's nearly sundown now, and the
supper-bell will be ringing before we get back to the ranch, if we don't
start soon."

"Well, lock the doors, and we'll go," said Joyce, beginning to pin on
her hat.

"Oh, what's the use of being so particular! Mrs. Lee says everybody is
honest out in this country. They never turn a key on the ranch, and
they've never had anything taken either by Mexicans or Indians in all
the years they've lived here. It isn't half as wild as I hoped it would
be. I wish I could have been a pioneer, and had some of the exciting
times they had."

Nevertheless, Jack barred the back door and locked the front one, before
following Joyce across the yard, and over the little bridge spanning the
irrigating canal, into the public road. They stood there a moment,
looking back at the house, just one big square adobe room, with a
shed-kitchen in the rear. Around three sides of it ran a rough sort of
porch or shack, built of cottonwood posts, supporting a thatch of
bamboo-stalks and palm-leaves. While it would afford a fine shelter from
the sun in the tropical summer awaiting them, it was a homely,
primitive-looking affair, almost as rough in its appearance as if
Robinson Crusoe himself had built it.

"It's hopeless, isn't it!" said Joyce, with a despairing shake of the
head. "No matter how homelike we may make it inside, it will always be
the picture of desolation outside."

"Not when the leaves come out on that row of umbrella-trees," answered
Jack. "Mrs. Lee says they will be so green and bushy that they will
almost hide the house, and the blossoms on them in the spring are as
purple and sweet as lilacs. Then this row of fig-trees along the road,
and the clump of cottonwoods back of the house, and those two big
pepper-trees by the gate will make it cool and shady here, no matter
how scorching hot the desert may be. We'll have to give them lots of
water. Oh, that reminds me, I'll have to have a pair of rubber boots, if
I am to do the irrigating. The water will be in again day after
to-morrow."

Joyce groaned as she opened the book she was carrying, and added boots
to the long list on the fly-leaf. "What a lot it's going to take to get
us started. Crusoe certainly had reason to be thankful for the
shipwrecked stores he found."

"But it'll cost less to get the boots than to hire a Mexican every eight
days to do the irrigating," said Jack.

Following the road beside the canal, they walked along in the last rays
of the sunset, toward the ranch. Birds twittered now and then in the
fig-trees on their right, or a string of cows went lowing homeward
through the green alfalfa pastures, to the milking. The road and canal
seemed to run between two worlds, for on the left it was all a dreary
desert, the barren sands stretching away toward the red buttes and old
Camelback Mountain, as wild and cheerless as when the Indians held
possession. Some day it too would "rejoice and blossom like the rose,"
but not until a network of waterways dug across it brought it new life.

Once as they walked along, a jack-rabbit crossed their path and went
bounding away in a fright. A covey of quail rose with a loud whirr of
wings from a clump of bushes beside the road, but they met no human
being until Holland and Mary, just from school, came racing out from the
ranch to meet them with eager questions about the new home.

Chris, the Mexican, had made the round of the tents, building a little
fire of mesquite wood in each tiny drum stove, for in February the air
of the desert grows icy as soon as the sun disappears. Mrs. Ware was
sitting in a rocking-chair between the stove and table, on which stood a
lamp with a yellow shade, sending a cheerful glow all over the tent.
Joyce took the remaining chair, Jack sat on the wood-box, and Mary,
Norman and Holland piled upon the bed, to take part in the family
conclave. The canvas curtain had been dropped over the screen-door, and
the bright Indian rugs on the floor gave a touch of warmth and cosiness
to the tent that made it seem wonderfully bright and homelike.

"I don't see," said Mary, when she had listened to a description of the
place, "how we are all going to eat and sleep and live in one room and a
kitchen. It takes three tents to hold us all here, besides having the
ranch dining-room to eat in. What if Eugenia Forbes should come from
the Waldorf-Astoria to visit us, or the Little Colonel, or some of the
other girls from Kentucky, that you knew at the house-party, Joyce?
Where would they sleep?"

"Yes," chimed in Holland, teasingly, "or the Queen of Sheba? Suppose
_she_ should come with all her train. It's about as likely. We would
have to play 'Pussy wants a corner' all night, Mary, and whoever
happened to be 'it' would have to sit up until he happened to find
somebody out of his corner."

"Goosey!" exclaimed Mary, sticking out her tongue at him and making the
worst face she could screw up. "Honestly, what would we do, Joyce?"

"We're not going to try to live in just one room," explained Joyce. "The
doctor said mamma ought to sleep in a tent, so we'll get a big double
one like this, wainscoted up high, with floor and screen-door, just like
this. Mamma and you and I can use that, and the boys will have just an
ordinary camping-tent, without door or floor. They have been so wild to
be pioneers that they will be glad to come as near to it as possible,
and that means living without extra comforts and conveniences. In the
house one corner of the room will be the library, where we'll put papa's
desk, and one corner will be the sewing-room, where we'll have the
machine, and one will be a cosy corner, with the big lounge and lots of
pillows. If the Queen of Sheba or the Little Colonel should do such an
improbable thing as to stray out here, we'll have a place for them."

"There goes the supper-bell," cried Norman, scrambling down from the bed
in hot haste to beat Mary to the table. Joyce waited to turn down the
lamp, close the stove draughts, and bring her mother's shawl, before
following them.

"How bright the camp looks with a light in every tent," she said, as
they stepped out under the stars. "They look like the transparencies in
the torchlight processions, that we used to have back in Plainsville."

Mrs. Ware's tent was in the front row, so it was only a step to the door
of the dining-room in the ranch house. The long table was nearly filled
when they took their seats. Gathered around it were people who had
drifted there from all parts of the world in search of lost health. A
Boston law-student, a Wyoming cowboy, a Canadian minister, a Scotchman
from Inverness, and a jolly Irish lad from Belfast were among the
number.

The most interesting one to Joyce was an old Norwegian who sat opposite
her, by the name of Jan Ellestad. Not old in years, for his hair was
still untouched by gray, and his dark eyes flashed at times with the
spirit of the old vikings, when he told the folk-lore of his fatherland.
But he was old in sad experiences, and broken health, and broken hopes.
The faint trace of a foreign accent that clung to his speech made
everything he said seem interesting to Joyce, and after Mrs. Lee had
told her something of his history, she looked upon him as a hero. This
was the third winter he had come back to the ranch. He knew he could not
live through another year, and he had stopped making plans for himself,
but he listened with unfailing cheerfulness to other people's. Now he
looked up expectantly as Joyce took her seat.

"I can see by your face, Miss Joyce," he said, in his slow, hesitating
way, as if groping for the right words, "that you are about to plunge
this ranch into another wild excitement. What is it now, please?"

"Guess!" said Joyce, glancing around the table. "Everybody can have one
guess."

During the three weeks that the Wares had been on the ranch they had
made many friends among the boarders. Most of them could do little but
sit in the sun and wait for the winter to creep by, so they welcomed
anything that relieved the monotony of the long idle days. Mary's
unexpected remarks gave fresh zest to the conversation. The boys,
bubbling over with energy and high spirits, were a constant source of
entertainment, and Joyce's enthusiasms were contagious. She was
constantly coming in from the desert with some strange discovery to
arouse the interest of the listless little company.

Now, as her challenge passed around the table, any one hearing her laugh
at the amusing replies would not have dreamed that only a few hours
before she was sobbing to Jack that she was sick of seeing nothing but
invalids and sand and cactus.

"We haven't any name for our new home," she announced, "and I'm thinking
of having a name contest. Any one can offer an unlimited number, and the
best shall receive a prize."

"Then I'll win," responded the Scotchman, promptly. "There's nae mair
appropriate name for a wee bit lodging-place like that, than
_Bide-a-wee_."

"That is pretty," said Joyce, repeating it thoughtfully. "I love the old
song by that name, but I'm afraid that it isn't exactly appropriate. You
see, we may have to bide there for years and years instead of just a
wee."

"Give it a Spanish name," said the minister. "Alamo means cottonwood,
and you have a group of cottonwoods there. That would be just as good as
naming it The Pines, or The Oaks, or The Beeches."

"No, call it something Indian," said the cowboy. "Something that means
little-mud-house-in-the-desert, yet has a high-sounding swing to the
syllables."

"Wait till we get through fixing it," interrupted Jack. "It'll look so
fine that you won't dare call it little-mud-house-in-the-desert. We're
going to paint and paper it ourselves."

"Not you two children," exclaimed the Norwegian, in surprise.

"With our own lily fingers," answered Joyce.

"Then you'll have an interested audience," he answered. "You'll find all
of us who are able to walk perching in the fig-trees outside your door
every morning, waiting for the performance to begin."

"Whoever perches there will have to descend and help, won't they, Jack?"
said Joyce, saucily.

"Oh, mamma," whispered Mary, "is Mr. Ellestad really going to climb up
in the fig-tree and watch them? _Please_ let me stay home from school
and help. I know I can't study if I go, for I'll be thinking of all the
fun I'm missing."




CHAPTER III.

A DAY AT SCHOOL.


IT was with a most unwilling mind and an unhappy heart that Mary began
her third week at school. In the first place she could not bear to tear
herself away from all that was going on at the new house. She wanted to
have a hand in the dear delights of home-making. She wanted to poke the
camp-fire, and dabble in the paste, and watch the walls grow fresh and
clean as the paper spread over the old patches. The smell of the fresh
paint drew her, and gave her a feeling that there were all sorts of
delightful possibilities in this region, yet unexplored.

In the second place, life in the new school was a grievous burden,
because the boys, seeing how easily she was teased, found their chief
pleasure in annoying her. She was a trusting little soul, ready to
nibble the bait that any trap offered.

"Never mind! You'll get used to it after awhile," her mother said,
consolingly, each evening when she came home with a list of fresh woes.
"You're tired now from that long walk home. Things will seem better
after supper." And Joyce would add, "Don't look so doleful, Mother
Bunch; just remember the vicar, and keep inflexible. Fortune is bound to
change in your favour after awhile." But the third Friday found her as
unhappy as the third Monday.

There were two rooms in the school building, one containing all the
primary classes, the other the grammar grades, where Holland found a
place. Mary had one of the back seats in the primary department, and one
of the highest hooks in the cloak-room, on which to hang her belongings.
But this Friday morning she did not leave her lunch-basket in either
place.

She and Patty Ritter, the little girl who sat across the aisle from her,
had had an indignation-meeting the day before, and agreed to hide their
baskets in a hedgerow, so that there could be no possibility of Wig
Smith's finding them. Salt on one's jelly cake and pepper in one's
apple-pie two days in succession is a little too much to be borne
calmly. Wig Smith's fondness for seasoning other people's lunches was
only one of his many obnoxious traits.

"There," said Mary, scanning the horizon anxiously, to see that no
prowling boy was in sight. "Nobody would think of looking behind that
prickly cactus for a lunch-basket! We're sure of not going hungry
to-day!"

With their arms around each other, they strolled back to the
schoolhouse, taking a roundabout way, with great cunning, to throw Wig
Smith off the track, in case he should be watching. But their
precautions were needless this time. Wig had set up a dentist's
establishment on the steps of the stile, his stock in trade being a
pocket-knife and a hat full of raw turnips. Nothing could have been
friendlier than the way he greeted Mary and Patty, insisting that they
each needed a set of false teeth. Half a dozen of his friends had
already been fitted out, and stood around, grinning, in order to show
the big white turnip teeth he had fitted over the set provided by
Nature. As the teeth were cut in irregular shapes, wide square-tipped
ones alternating with long pointed fangs, and the upper lip had to be
drawn tightly to hold them in place, the effect was so comical that they
could hardly hold the new sets in position for laughing at each other.

In payment for his work, Wig accepted almost anything that his customers
had to offer: marbles, when he could get them, pencils, apples,
fish-hooks, even a roll of tin-foil, saved from many chewing-gum
packages, which was all one girl had to trade.

A search through Mary's orderly pencil-box failed to show anything that
he wanted of hers, but the neatly prepared home lesson which fluttered
out of her arithmetic caught his eye. He agreed to make her the teeth
for a copy of six problems which he could not solve. Mary had much the
hardest part of the bargain, for, sitting on the stile, she patiently
copied long-division sums until the second bell rang, while he turned
off the teeth with a few masterful strokes of his knife.

"Let's all put them in as soon as we're done singing, and wear them till
we recite spelling," he suggested. "It's mighty hard to keep from
chawin' on 'em after they've been in your mouth awhile. Let's see who
can keep them in longest. Every five minutes by the clock, if the
teacher isn't lookin', we'll all grin at onct to show that they're still
in."

Needless to say, the usual Friday morning studiousness did not prevail
in the primary room that morning. Too many eyes were watching the clock
for the moment of display to arrive, and when it did arrive, the
coughing and choking that was set up to hide the titters, plainly told
the teacher that some mischief was afoot. If she could have turned in
time to see the distorted faces, she must have laughed too, it was such
a comical sight, but she was trying to explain to a row of stupid little
mathematicians the mysteries of borrowing in subtraction, and always
looked up a moment too late.

Mary Ware, having written every word of her spelling lesson from memory,
and compared it with her book to be sure that she knew it, now had a
quarter of an hour of leisure. This she devoted to putting her desk in
order. The books were dusted and piled in neat rows. Everything in her
pencil-box was examined, and laid back with care, the slate-rag folded
and tucked under the moist sponge. There was another box in her desk. It
had bunches of violets on it and strips of lace-paper lining the sides.
It smelled faintly of the violet soap it had once held. She kept several
conveniences in this, pins, and an extra hair-ribbon in case of loss, a
comb, and a little round mirror with a celluloid back, on which was
printed the advertisement of a Plainsville druggist.

As she polished the little mirror, the temptation to use it was too
great to resist. Holding it under the desk, she stretched her lips back
as far as possible in a grotesque grin, to show her set of turnip teeth.
They looked so funny that she tried it again with variations, rolling
her eyes and wrinkling her nose. So absorbed was she that she did not
realize that a silence had fallen in the room, that the recitation had
stopped and all eyes were turned upon her. Then her own name, spoken in
a stern tone, startled her so that she bounced in her seat and dropped
the mirror.

"Why, _Mary Ware_! I'm _astonished_! Come here!"

Blushing and embarrassed at being called into public notice, Mary
stumbled up to the platform, and submitted to an examination of her
mouth. Then, following orders, she went to the door, and with much
sputtering spat the teeth out into the yard.

"I'll see you about this after school," remarked the teacher, sternly,
as she stumbled back to her seat, overcome by mortification.

If the teacher had not been so busy watching Mary obey orders, she would
have noticed a rapid moving of many jaws along the back row of seats,
and a mighty gulping and swallowing, as the other sets of teeth
disappeared down the throats of their owners.

"So this has been the cause of so much disturbance this morning," she
remarked, crossly. "I'm astonished that one of the quietest pupils in
the school should have behaved in such a manner." Then as a precaution
she added, "Is there any one else in the room who has any of these
turnip teeth? Raise your hands if you have."

Not a hand went up, and every face met Mary's indignant accusing gaze
with such an innocent stare that she cried out:

"Oh, what a story!"

"Open your mouths," commanded the teacher. "Turn your pockets wrong side
out."

To Mary's amazement, nobody had so much as a taste of turnip to show,
and she stood accused of being the only offender, the only one with
judgment awaiting her after school. With her head on her desk, and her
face hidden on her arms, she cried softly all through the spelling
recitation. "It wasn't fair," she sobbed to herself.

Patty comforted her at recess with half her stick of licorice, and
several of the other girls crowded around her, begging her to come and
play Bird, and not to mind what the boys said, and not to look around
when Wig Smith mimicked the teacher's manner, and called after her in a
tantalizing tone, "Why, Mary Ware! I'm _astonished_!"

Gradually they won her away from her tears, and before recess was over
she was shrieking with the gayest of them as they raced around the
schoolhouse to escape the girl who, being "It," personated the "bad
man."

As they dropped into their seats at the close of recess, hot and
panting, a boy from the grammar room came in and spoke to the teacher.
It was Paul Archer, a boy from New York, whose father had recently
bought a ranch near by. He held up a string of amber beads, as the
teacher asked, "Does this belong to any one in this room?"

They were beautiful beads. Mary caught her breath as she looked at them.
"Like drops of rain strung on a sunbeam," she thought, watching them
sparkle as he turned and twisted the string. Paul was a big boy, very
clean and very good-looking, and as little Blanche Ellert came up to
claim her necklace, blushing and shaking back her curls, he held it out
with such a polite, dancing-school bow that Mary's romantic little soul
was greatly impressed. She wished that the beautiful beads had been
hers, and that she had lost them, and could have claimed them before the
whole school, and had them surrendered to her in that princely way. She
would like to lose a ring, she thought, that is, if she had one, or a
locket, and have Paul find it, and give it to her before the whole
school.

Then she remembered that she had worn her best jacket to school that
morning, and in the pocket was a handkerchief that had been hung on the
Sunday-school Christmas-tree for her in Plainsville. It was a little
white silk one, embroidered in the corners with sprays of
forget-me-nots, blue, with tiny pink buds. What if she should lose that
and Paul should find it, and hold up the pretty thing in sight of all
the school for her to claim?

As the morning wore on, the thought pleased her more and more. The
primary grades were dismissed first at noon, so she had time to slip the
handkerchief from her jacket-pocket, tiptoe guiltily into the other
cloak-room, and drop it under a certain wide-brimmed felt hat, which
hung on its peg with a jauntier grace than the other caps and sombreros
could boast. It seemed to stare at her in surprise. Half-frightened by
her own daring, she tiptoed out again, and ran after Patty, who was
hunting for her outside.

"There won't be any salt in our cake and pepper in our pie to-day,"
Patty said, confidently, as they strolled off together with their arms
around each other. "Let's get our baskets, and go away off out of sight
to eat our dinners. I know the nicest place down by the lateral under
some cottonwood-trees. The water is running to-day."

"It'll be like having a picnic beside a babbling brook," assented Mary.
"I love to hear the water gurgle through the water-gate."

Seated on a freshly hewn log, after a careful survey had convinced them
that no lizards, Gila monsters, or horned toads lurked underneath, the
little girls opened their baskets, and shook out their napkins. The next
instant a wail rose from them in unison:

"Ants! Nasty little black ants! They're over everything!"

"Just look at my chicken sandwiches," mourned Mary, "and all that lovely
gingerbread. They're walking all over it and through it and into it and
around it. There isn't a spot that they haven't touched!"

"And my mince turnovers," cried Patty. "I brought one for you to-day,
too, and a devilled egg. But there isn't a thing in my basket that's fit
to eat."

"Nor mine, either," said Mary, "except the apples. We might wash them in
the lateral."

"And I'm nearly starved, I'm so hungry," grumbled Patty. "An apple's
better than nothing, but it doesn't go very far."

"It's no use to go and ask Holland for any of his lunch," said Mary. "By
this time he's gobbled up even the scraps, and busted the bag. He always
brings his in a paper bag, so's there'll be no basket to carry home."

Cautiously leaning over the bank of the lateral, Mary began dabbling her
apple back and forth in the water, and Patty, kneeling beside her,
followed her example. Suddenly Patty's apple slipped out of her hand,
and she clutched frantically at Mary's arm in her effort to save it, and
at the same time keep her balance. Both swayed and fell sideways. Mary's
arm plunged into the water, wetting her sleeve nearly to her shoulder,
but, clawing at the earth and long grass with the other hand, she
managed, after much scrambling, to regain her position.

Patty, with a scream, rolled over into the water. The ditch was shallow,
not more than waist-deep, but as she had fallen full length, she came up
soaking wet. Even her hair dripped muddy little rivers down over her
face. There was no more school for Patty that day. As soon as her old
yellow horse could be saddled, she started off on a lope toward dry
clothes and a hot dinner.

Mary looked after her longingly, as she sat with her sleeve held out in
the sun to dry, and slowly munched her one cold apple. She was so hungry
and miserable that she wanted to cry, yet this child of nine was a
philosopher in her small way.

"I'm not having half as bad a time as the old vicar had," she said to
herself, "so I won't be a baby. Seems to me, though, that it's about
time fortune was changing in my favour. Maybe the turn will be when Paul
finds my forget-me-not handkerchief."

With that time in view, she carefully smoothed the wrinkles out of her
sleeve as it dried, and pulled the lace edging into shape around the
cuff. Then she combed the front of her hair, and retied the big bows.
She was not equal to the task of braiding it herself, but a glance into
the little celluloid mirror satisfied her that she looked neat enough to
march up before the school when the time should come for her to claim
her handkerchief.

Every time the door opened before the afternoon recess she looked up
expectantly, her cheeks growing red and her heart beating fast. But no
Paul appeared, or anybody else who had found anything to be restored to
its owner. She began to feel anxious, and to wonder if she would ever
see her beloved forget-me-not handkerchief again.

At recess she dodged back into the hall after every one had passed out,
and stole a quick glance into the other cloak-room. The handkerchief was
gone. Somebody had picked it up. Maybe the finder had been too busy to
search for the owner. It would be brought in before school closed; just
before dismissal probably. The prospect took part of the sting out of
the recollection that she was to be kept after school that evening, for
the first time in her life.

During the last period in the afternoon, the A Geography class always
studied its lesson for next day. Mary specially liked this study, and
with her little primary geography propped up in front of her, carefully
learned every word of description, both large print and small, on the
page devoted to Africa.

"Your hair is coming undone," whispered the girl behind her. "Let me
plait it for you. I love to fool with anybody's hair."

Mary nodded her consent without turning around, and sat up straight in
her seat, so that Jennie could reach it with greater ease. She never
took her eyes from the page. The teacher, who was putting home
lessons on the board for the D Arithmetic to copy, was too busy to
notice Jennie's new occupation.

[Illustration: "SHE PROCEEDED WITH A JOYFUL HEART TO PAINT THE AFRICAN
LION"]

Mary enjoyed the soft touch of Jennie's fingers on her hair. It felt so
good to have it pulled into place with smooth, deft pats here and there.
After the bows were tied on, Jennie still continued to play with it,
braiding the ends below the ribbon into plaits that grew thinner and
thinner, until they ended in points as fine and soft as a camel's-hair
paint-brush. Evidently they suggested brushes to Jennie, for presently
she dived into her desk for something quite foreign to school work. It
was a little palette-shaped card on which were arranged seven cakes of
cheap water-colour paint. The brush attached to the palette had been
lost on Christmas Day, before she had had more than one trial of her
skill as an artist.

The water-bottle, which held the soap-suds devoted to slate-cleaning,
stood behind the pile of books in her desk. She drew that out, and,
having uncorked it, carefully dipped the end of one of Mary's braids
into it. Then rubbing it across the cake of red paint, she proceeded
with a joyful heart to paint the African lion in her geography the most
brilliant red that can be imagined.

Mary, still enjoying the gentle pull, little guessed what a bloody tip
swung behind her right shoulder. Then the caressing touch was
transferred to the left braid, and the greenest of green Bedouins,
mounted on the most purple of camels, appeared on the picture of the
Sahara.

The signal for dismissal, sounding from the principal's room across the
hall, surprised both the girls. The time had passed so rapidly. Mary,
putting her hand back to feel if her bows were properly tied, suddenly
jerked her right braid forward in alarm. The end was wet, and--was it
_blood_ that made it so red? With a horrified expression she clutched
the other one, and finding that wet and green, turned squarely around in
her seat. She was just in time to see the geography closing on the red
lion and green Bedouin, and realized in a flash how Jennie had been
"fooling" with her hair.

Before she could sputter out her indignation, the teacher rapped sharply
on the table for attention. "Will you _please_ come to order, Mary
Ware?" she said, sternly. "Remember, you are to remain after the others
are dismissed."

To have been publicly reprimanded twice in one day, to have been kept
after school, to have had one's lunch spoiled by ants, and to have been
left miserably hungry all afternoon, to have had the shock of a plunge
almost to the shoulder in icy water, and the discomfort of having a wet
sleeve dried on one's arm, to have had one's hair used as paint-brushes,
so that stains were left on the back of the new gingham dress, was too
much. Mary could keep inflexible no longer. Then she remembered that no
one had brought back the forget-me-not handkerchief, and with that to
cap her woes, she laid her head down on the desk and sobbed while the
others filed out and left her.

Usually, Holland found her waiting for him by the stile when the grammar
grades were dismissed, but not seeing her there, he forgot all about
her, and dashed on after the boy who tagged him. Then he and George Lee
hurried on home to set a new gopher-trap they had invented, without
giving her a thought. The faithful Patty, who always walked with her as
far as the turn, had not come back to school after her plunge into the
lateral. So it came about that when Mary finally put on her hat and
jacket in the empty cloak-room, the playground was deserted. As far as
her tear-swollen eyes could see up and down the road, not a child was in
sight. With a sob, she stood a moment on the top step of the stile, then
slowly swinging her lunch-basket, in which there were no scraps as
usual to appease her after-school hunger, she started on the long,
two-mile walk home.

It looked later than it really was, for the sun was not shining. She had
gone on a long way, when a sound of hoofs far down the road made her
look back. What she saw made her give another startled glance over her
shoulder, and quicken her pace. Half-running, she looked back again. The
sound was coming nearer. So was the rider. Another glance made her stand
still, her knees shaking under her; for on the pony was an Indian, a
big, stolid buck, with black hair hanging in straight locks over his
shoulders.

She looked wildly around. Nobody else was in sight, no house anywhere.
The biggest man-eating tiger in the jungles could not have terrified her
like the sight of that lone Indian. All the tales that Jack and Holland
had told for their mutual frightening, all that she had read herself of
tortures and cruelties came into her mind. Their name was legion, and
they were startlingly fresh in her memory, for only the evening before
she had finished a book called "On the Borders with Crook," and the
capture of the Oatman girls had been repeated in her dreams.

Sure that the Indian intended to tomahawk her the instant he reached
her, she gave one stifled gasp of terror, and started down the road as
fast as her fat little legs could carry her. A few rods farther on her
hat flew off, but she was running for her life, and even the handsome
steel buckle that had once been Cousin Kate's could not be rescued at
such a risk.

She felt that she was running in a treadmill. Her legs were going up and
down, up and down, faster than they had ever moved before, but she
seemed to be making no progress; she was unable to get past that one
spot in the road. And the Indian was coming on nearer and nearer, with
deadly certainty, gaining on her at every breath. She felt that she had
been running for a week, that she could not possibly take another step.
But with one more frantic glance backward, she gave another scream, and
dashed on harder than before.




CHAPTER IV.

WARE'S WIGWAM


PHIL TREMONT, driving out from Phoenix in a high, red-wheeled cart,
paused at the cross-roads, uncertain whether to turn there or keep on to
the next section-line. According to part of the directions given him,
this was the turning-place. Still, he had not yet come in sight of
Camelback Mountain, which was to serve as a guide-post. Not a house was
near at which he might inquire, and not a living thing in sight except a
jack-rabbit, which started up from the roadside, and bounded away at his
approach.

Then he caught sight of the little whirl of dust surrounding Mary in her
terrified flight, and touched his horse with the whip. In a moment he
was alongside of the breathless, bareheaded child.

"Little girl," he called, "can you tell me if this is the road to Lee's
ranch?" Then, as she turned a dirty, tear-stained face, he exclaimed, in
amazement, "Of all people under the sun! The little vicar! Well, you
_are_ a sprinter! What are you racing with?"

Mary sank down on the road, so exhausted by her long run that she
breathed in quick, gasping sobs. Her relief at seeing a white face
instead of a red one was so great that she had no room for surprise in
her little brain that the face should be Phil Tremont's, who was
supposed to be far away in California. She recognized him instantly,
although he no longer wore his uniform, and the broad-brimmed hat he
wore suggested the cowboy of the plains rather than the cadet of the
military school.

"What are you racing with?" he repeated, laughingly. "That jack-rabbit
that passed me down yonder?"

"A--a--a _Indian_!" she managed to gasp. "He chased me--all the
way--from the schoolhouse!"

"An Indian!" repeated Phil, standing up in the cart to look back down
the road. "Oh, it must have been that old fellow I passed half a mile
back. He was an ugly-looking specimen, but he couldn't have chased you;
his pony was so stiff and old it couldn't go out of a walk."

"He _was_ a-chasing me!" insisted Mary, the tears beginning to roll down
her face again. She looked so little and forlorn, sitting there in a
heap beside the road, that Phil sprang from the cart, and picked her up
in his strong arms.

"There," said he, lifting her into the cart. "'Weep no more, my lady,
weep no more to-day!' Fortune has at last changed in your favour. You
are snatched from the bloody scalper of the plains, and shall be driven
home in style by your brave rescuer, if you'll only tell me which way to
go."

The tear-stained little face was one broad smile as Mary leaned back in
the seat. She pointed up the road to a clump of umbrella-trees. "That's
where we turn," she said. "When you come to the trees you'll see there's
a little house behind them. It's the White Bachelor's. We call him that
because his horse and dog and cows and cats and chickens are all white.
That's how I first remembered where to turn on my way home, by the place
where there's so awful many white chickens. I was hoping to get to his
place before I died of running, when you came along. You saved my life,
didn't you? I never had my life saved before. Wasn't it strange the way
you happened by at exactly the right moment? It's just as if we were in
a book. I thought you were away off in California at school. How _did_
it happen anyway?" she asked, peering up at him under his broad-brimmed
hat.

A dull red flushed his face an instant, then he answered, lightly, "Oh,
I thought I'd take a vacation. I got tired of school, and I've started
out to see the world. I remembered what your brother said about the
quail-shooting out here, and the ducks, so I thought I'd try it a few
weeks, and then go on somewhere else. I've always wanted a taste of
ranch life and camping."

"I'm tired of school, too," said Mary, "specially after all the terrible
unpleasant things that have happened to-day. But my family won't let me
stop, not if I begged all night and all day. How did you get yours to?"

"Didn't ask 'em," said Phil, grimly. "Just chucked it, and came away."

"But didn't your father say anything at all? Didn't he care?"

The red came up again in the boy's face. "He doesn't know anything about
it--yet; he's in Europe, you know."

They had reached the White Bachelor's now, and turning, took the road
that ran like a narrow ribbon between the irrigated country and the
desert. On one side were the wastes of sand between the red buttes and
old Camelback Mountain, on the other were the green ranches with their
rows of figs and willows and palms, bordering all the waterways.

"Now we're just half a mile from Lee's ranch," said Mary. "We'll be
there in no time."

"Do you suppose they'll have room for me?" inquired Phil. "That's what
I've come out for, to engage board."

"Oh, I'm sure they will, anyhow, after to-morrow, for we're going to
move then, and that'll leave three empty tents. We've rented a place
half a mile farther up the road, and Jack and Joyce are having more fun
fixing it up. That's one reason I want to stop school. I'm missing all
the good times."

"Hello! This seems to be quite a good-sized camp!" exclaimed Phil, as
they came in sight of an adobe house, around which clustered a group of
twenty or more tents, like a brood of white chickens around a motherly
old brown hen. "There comes Mrs. Lee now," cried Mary, as a tall,
black-haired woman came out of the house, and started across to one of
the tents with a tray in her hands. Her pink dress fluttered behind her
as she moved forward, with a firm, light tread, suggestive of buoyant
spirits and unbounded cheerfulness.

"She's doing something for somebody all the time," remarked Mary. "If
you were sick she'd nurse you as if she was your mother, but as long as
you're not sick, maybe she won't let you come. Oh, I never thought about
that. This is a camp for invalids, you know, and she is so interested in
helping sick people get well, that maybe she won't take any interest in
you. Have you got a letter from anybody? Oh, I do hope you have!"

"A letter," repeated Phil. "What kind?"

"A letter to say that you're all right, you know, from somebody that
knows you. I heard her tell Doctor Adams last week that she wouldn't
take anybody else unless she had a letter of--of something or other, I
can't remember, because one man went off without paying his board. _We_
had a letter from her brother."

"No, I haven't any letter of recommendation or introduction, if that's
what you mean," said Phil, "but maybe I can fix it up all right with
her. Can't you say a good word for me?"

"Of course," answered Mary, taking his question in all seriousness. "And
I'll run and get mamma, too. She'll make it all right."

Springing out, Phil lifted her over the wheel, and then stood flicking
the dry Bermuda grass with his whip, as he waited for Mary to announce
his coming. He could hear her shrill little voice in the tent, whither
she had followed Mrs. Lee to tell her of his arrival.

"It's the Mr. Phil Tremont we met on the train," he heard her say.
"Don't you know, the one I told you about running away with his little
sister and the monkey and the music-box one time. He isn't sick, but he
wants to stay here awhile, and I told him you'd be good to him, anyhow."

Then she hurried away to her mother's tent, and Mrs. Lee came out
laughing. There was something so genial and friendly in the humourous
twinkle of her eyes, something so frank and breezy in her hospitable
Western welcome, that Phil met her with the same outspoken frankness.

"I heard what Mary said," he began, "and I do hope you'll take me in,
for I've run away again, Mrs. Lee." Then his handsome face sobered, and
he said, in his straightforward, boyish way that Mrs. Lee found very
attractive, "I got into a scrape at the military school. It wasn't
anything wicked, but four of us were fired. The other fellows' fathers
got them taken back, but mine is in Europe, and it's so unsatisfactory
making explanations at that long range, and I thought they hadn't been
altogether fair in the matter, so I--well, I just skipped out. Mary said
I'd have to have references. I can't give you any now, but I can pay in
advance for a month's board, if you'll take me that way."

He pulled out such a large roll of bills as he spoke, that Mrs. Lee
looked at him keenly. All sorts of people had drifted to her ranch, but
never before a schoolboy of seventeen with so much money in his pocket.
He caught the glance, and something in the motherly concern that seemed
to cross her face made him say, hastily, "Father left an emergency fund
for my sister and me when he went away, besides our monthly allowance,
and I drew on mine before I came out here."

While they were discussing prices, Mrs. Ware came out with a cordial
greeting. Mary's excited tale of her rescue had almost led her to
believe that Phil had snatched her little daughter from an Indian's
tomahawk. She was heartily glad to see him, for the few hours'
acquaintance on the train had given her a strong interest in the
motherless boy and girl, and she had thought of them many times since
then. Phil felt that in coming back to the Wares he was coming back to
old friends. After it was settled that he might send his trunk out next
day, when a tent would be vacant, he sat for a long time talking to Mrs.
Ware and Mary, in the rustic arbour covered with bamboo and palm leaves.

Chris was calling the cows to the milking when he finally rose to go,
and only rapid driving would take him back to Phoenix before nightfall.
As the red wheels disappeared down the road, Mary exclaimed, "This has
certainly been the most exciting day of my life! It has been so full of
unexpected things. Isn't it grand to think that Mr. Phil is coming to
the ranch? Fortune certainly changed in my favour when he happened along
just in time to save my life. Oh, dear, there come Joyce and Jack!
They've just missed him!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Saturday afternoon found the new home all ready for its occupants. Even
the trunks had been brought up from the ranch and stowed away in the
tents. Although it was only two o'clock, the table was already set for
tea in one corner of the clean, fresh kitchen, behind a tall screen.

Joyce, with her blue calico sleeves tucked up above her white elbows,
whistled softly as she tied on a clean apron before beginning her
baking. She had not been as happy in months. The hard week's work had
turned the bare adobe house into a comfortable little home, and she
could hardly wait for her mother to see it. Mrs. Lee was to bring her
and Norman over in the surrey. Any moment they might come driving up the
road.

Jack had offered to stay if his services were needed further, but she
had sent him away to take his well-earned holiday. As he tramped off
with his gun over his shoulder, her voice followed him pleasantly: "Good
luck to you, Jack. You deserve it, for you've stuck by me like a man
this week."

Since dinner Mary and Holland had swept the yard, brought wood for the
camp-fire, filled the boiler and the pitchers in the tents, and then
gone off, as Joyce supposed, to rest under the cottonwood-trees.
Presently she heard Mary tiptoeing into the sitting-room, and peeped in
to find her standing in the middle of the floor, with her hands clasped
behind her.

"Isn't it sweet and homey!" Mary exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see the old
furniture again I could just hug it! I came in to get the book about
Hiawatha, sister. Holland keeps teasing me 'cause I said I wished I was
named Minnehaha, and says I am Mary-ha-ha. And I want to find a name
for him, a real ugly one!"

"Call him Pau-Puk-Keewis,--mischief-maker," suggested Joyce. "There's
the book on the second shelf of the bookcase." She stepped into the room
to slip the soft silk curtain farther down the brass rod.

"I'm prouder of this bookcase than almost anything else we have," she
said. "Nobody would guess that it was made of the packing-boxes that the
goods came in, and that this lovely Persian silk curtain was once the
lining of one of Cousin Kate's party dresses."

"I'm glad that everything looks so nice," said Mary, "for Mr. Phil said
he was coming up to see us this evening. I'm going to put on a clean
dress and my best hair-ribbons before then."

"Very well," assented Joyce, going back to the kitchen. "I'll change my
dress, too," she thought, as she went on with her work. "And I'll light
both lamps. The Indian rugs and blankets make the room look so bright
and cosy by lamplight."

It had been so long since she had seen any one but the family and the
invalids at the ranch, that the thought of talking to the jolly young
cadet added another pleasure to her happy day.

"Oh, Joyce," called Holland, from behind the tents, "may we have the
paint that is left in the cans? There's only a little in each one."

"I don't care," she called back. That had been an hour ago, and now, as
she broke the eggs for a cake into a big platter, and began beating them
with a fork, she wondered what they were doing that kept them so quiet.
As the fork clacked noisily back and forth in the dish and the white
foam rose high and stiff, her whistling grew louder. It seemed to fill
all the sunny afternoon silence with its trills, for Joyce's whistle was
as clear and strong as any boy's or any bird's. But suddenly, as it
reached its highest notes, it stopped short. Joyce looked up as a shadow
fell across the floor, to see Jack coming in the back door with Phil
Tremont.

She had not heard the sound of their coming, for the noise of her
egg-beating and her whistling. Joyce blushed to the roots of her hair,
at being taken thus unawares, whistling like a boy over her cake-baking.
For an instant she wanted to shake Jack for bringing this stranger to
the kitchen door.

"We just stopped by for a drink," Jack explained. "Tremont was coming
out of the ranch with his gun when I passed with mine, so we've been
hunting together. Come in, Phil, I'll get a cup."

There was such a mischievous twinkle in Phil's eyes as he greeted her,
that Joyce blushed again. This was a very different meeting from the one
she had anticipated. Instead of him finding her, appearing to her best
advantage in a pretty white dress, sitting in the lamplight with a book
in her hands, perhaps, he had caught her in her old blue calico, her
sleeves rolled up, and a streak of flour across her bare arm. She rubbed
it hastily across her apron, and gathered up the egg-shells in
embarrassed silence.

"Did you tell those kids that they might paint up the premises the way
they are doing?" demanded Jack.

"What way?" asked Joyce, in surprise.

"Haven't you seen what they've done to the front of the house? They
haven't waited for your name contest, but have fixed up things to suit
themselves. You just ought to come out and look!"

Phil followed as they hurried around to the front of the house, then
stood smiling at the look of blank amazement which slowly spread over
Joyce's face. Down one of the rough cottonwood posts, which supported
the palm and bamboo thatch of their Robinson Crusoe porch, was painted
in big, straggling, bloody letters: "W-A-R-E-S W-I-G-W-A-M." Joyce
groaned. She had made such an attempt to convert the rude shade into an
attractive spot, spreading a Navajo blanket over her mother's
camp-chair, and putting cushions on the rustic bench to make a restful
place, where one could read or watch the shadows grow long across the
desert. She had even brought out a little wicker tea-table this
afternoon, with a vase of flowers on it, and leaned her mother's old
guitar against it to give a final civilizing touch to the picture. But
the effect was sadly marred by the freshly painted name, glaring at her
from the post.

"Oh, the little savages!" she exclaimed. "How could they do it? Ware's
Wigwam, indeed!"

Then her gaze followed Jack's finger pointing to the tents pitched under
the cottonwood-trees. The one which she was to share with Mary and her
mother stood white and clean, the screen-door open, showing the white
beds within, the rug on the floor, the flowers on the table; but the
large, circular one, which the boys were to occupy, was a sight to make
any one pause, open-mouthed.

Perched beside it on a scaffolding of boxes and barrels stood Holland,
with a paint-can in one hand and a brush in the other, putting the
finishing touches to some startling decorations. Mary, on the other
side, was brandishing another brush, and both were so intent on their
work that neither looked up. Joyce gave a gasp. Never had she seen such
amazing hieroglyphics as those which chased each other in zigzag green
lines around the fly of the tent. They bore a general resemblance to
those seen on Indian baskets and blankets and pottery, but nothing so
grotesque had ever flaunted across her sight before.

"Now, get the book," called Holland to Mary, "and see if we've left
anything out." Only Mary's back was visible to the amused spectators.
She took up the copy of "Hiawatha" from the barrel where it lay, careful
to keep the hem of her apron between it and her paint-bedaubed thumbs.

"I think we've painted every single figure he wrote about," said Mary.
"Now, I'll read, and you walk around and see if we've left anything out:

    "Very spacious was the wigwam
     With the gods of the Dacotahs
     Drawn and painted on the curtains."

"No, skip that," ordered Holland. "It's farther down." Mary's
paint-smeared fingers travelled slowly down the page, then she began
again:

    "Sun and moon and stars he painted,
     Man and beast and fish and reptile.

    "Figures of the Bear and Reindeer,
     Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver.

    "Owl and Eagle, Crane and Hen-hawk,
     And the Cormorant, bird of magic.

    "Figures mystical and awful,
     Figures strange and brightly coloured."

"They're all here," announced Holland, "specially the figures mystical
and awful. I'll have to label mine, or somebody will take my turtle for
a grizzly."

"Oh, the little savages!" exclaimed Joyce again. "How could they make
such a spectacle of the place! We'll be the laughing-stock of the whole
country."

"I don't suppose that'll ever come off the tent, but we can paint the
name off the post," said Jack.

"Oh, that's a fine name," said Phil, laughing, "leave it on. It's so
much more original than most people have."

Before Joyce could answer, the rattle of wheels announced the coming of
the surrey, and Mrs. Lee drove into the yard with Mrs. Ware and Norman,
and her own little daughter, Hazel. Then Joyce's anger, which had burned
to give Holland and Mary a good shaking, vanished completely at sight
of her mother's amusement. Mrs. Ware had not laughed so heartily in
months as she did at the ridiculous figures grinning from the tent. It
seemed so good to see her like her old cheerful self again that, when
she laughingly declared that the name straggling down the post exactly
suited the place, and was far more appropriate than Bide-a-wee or Alamo,
Joyce's frown entirely disappeared. Mrs. Lee caught up the old guitar,
and began a rattling parody of "John Brown had a little Indian,"
changing the words to a ridiculous rhyme about "_The_ Wares had a little
Wigwam."

Mrs. Ware sat down to try the new rustic seat, and then jumped up like a
girl again to look at the view of the mountains from the camp-chair, and
then led the way, laughing and talking, to investigate the new home. She
was as pleased as a child, and her pleasure made a festive occasion of
the home-coming, which Joyce had feared at first would be a sorry one.

Phil shouldered his gun ready to start off again, feeling that he ought
not to intrude, but Jack had worked too hard to miss the reward of
hearing his mother's pleased exclamations and seeing her face light up
over every little surprise they had prepared for her comfort. "Come and
see, too," he urged so cordially that Phil fell into line, poking into
all the corners, inspecting all the little shelves and cupboards, and
admiring all the little makeshifts as heartily as Mrs. Lee or Mrs. Ware.

They went through the tents first, then the kitchen, and last into the
living-room, of which Joyce was justly proud. There was only the old
furniture they had had in Plainsville, with the books and pictures, but
it was restful and homelike and really artistic, Phil acknowledged to
himself, looking around in surprise.

"Here's the Little Colonel's corner," said Mary, leading him to a group
of large photographs framed in passe-partout. "You know mamma used to
live in Kentucky, and once Joyce went back there to a house-party.
Here's the place, Locust. That's where the Little Colonel lives. Her
right name is Lloyd Sherman. And there she is on her pony, Tar Baby, and
there's her grandfather at the gate."

Phil stooped for a closer view of the photograph, and then straightened
up, with a look of dawning recognition in his face.

"Why, I've seen her," he said, slowly. "I've been past that place. Once,
several years ago, I was going from Cincinnati to Louisville with
father, and something happened that we stopped on a switch in front of
a place that looked just like that. And the brakeman said it was called
Locust. I was out on the rear platform. I believe we were waiting for an
express train to pass us, or something of the sort. At any rate, I saw
that same old gentleman,--he had only one arm and was all dressed in
white. Everybody was saying what a picture he made. The locusts were in
bloom, you know. And while he stood there, the prettiest little girl
came riding up on a black pony, with a magnificent St. Bernard dog
following. She was all in white, too, with a spray of locust blossoms
stuck in the cockade of the little black velvet Napoleon cap she wore,
exactly as it is in that picture; and she held up a letter and called
out: 'White pigeon wing fo' you, grandfathah deah.' I never forgot how
sweet it sounded."

"Oh, that was Lloyd! That was Lloyd!" called Mary and Joyce in the same
breath, and Joyce added: "She always used to call out that when she had
a letter for the old Colonel, and it must have been Hero that you saw,
the Red Cross war-dog that was given to her in Switzerland. How strange
it seems that you should come across her picture away out here in the
desert!"

Mary's eyes grew rounder and rounder as she listened. She delighted in
romantic situations, and this seemed to her one of the most romantic she
had ever known in real life, quite as interesting as anything she had
ever read about.

"Doesn't it seem queer to think that he's seen Lloyd and Locust?" she
exclaimed. "It makes him seem almost like home folks, doesn't it,
mamma?"

Mrs. Ware smiled. "It certainly does, dear, and we must try to make him
feel at home with us in our wild wigwam." She had seen the wistful
expression of his eyes a few moments before when, catching Joyce and
Jack by the arms, she had cried, proudly: "Nobody in the world has such
children as mine, Mrs. Lee! Don't you think I have cause to be proud of
my five little Indians, who fixed up this house so beautifully all by
themselves?"

"Come back and take supper with us, won't you?" she asked, as he and
Jack started on their interrupted hunt. "We'll make a sort of
house-warming of our first meal together in the new wigwam, and I'll be
glad to count you among my little Indians."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ware," he said, in his gentlemanly way and with the
frank smile which she found so winning; "you don't know how much that
means to a fellow who has been away from a real home as long as I have.
I'll be the gladdest 'little Indian' in the bunch to be counted in that
way."

"Then I'll get back to my cake-making," said Joyce, "if we're to have
company for supper. I won't promise that it'll be a success, though, for
while it bakes I'm going to write to Lloyd. I've thought for days that I
ought to write, for I've owed her a letter ever since Christmas. She
doesn't even know that we've left Plainsville. And I'm going to tell her
about your having seen her, and recognized her picture away out here on
the desert. I wish she'd come out and make us a visit."

"Here," said Phil, playfully, taking a sprig of orange blossoms from his
buttonhole, and putting it in the vase on the wicker table. "When you
get your letter written, put that in, as a sample of what grows out
here. I picked it as we passed Clayson's ranch. If it reaches her on a
cold, snowy day, it will make her want to come out to this land of
sunshine. You needn't tell her I sent it."

"I'll dare you to tell," said Jack, as they started off.

Joyce's only answer was a laugh, as she went back to her egg-beating.
Almost by the time the boys were out of sight, she had whisked the cake
dough into a pan, and the pan into the oven, and, while Mrs. Ware and
Mrs. Lee talked in the other room, she spread her paper out on the
kitchen table, and began her letter to the Little Colonel.




CHAPTER V.

WHAT A LETTER BROUGHT ABOUT


LLOYDSBORO VALLEY would have seemed a strange place to Joyce, could she
have followed her letter back to Kentucky. She had known it only in
midsummer, when the great trees at Locust arched their leafy branches
above the avenue, to make a giant arbour of green. Now these same trees
stood bleak and bare in the February twilight, almost knee-deep in
drifts of snow. Instead of a green lacework of vines, icicles hung
between the tall white pillars of the porch, gleaming like silver where
the light from the front windows streamed out upon them, and lay in
far-reaching paths across the snow.

In the long drawing-room, softly lighted by many candles and the glow of
a great wood fire, the Little Colonel sat on the arm of her father's
chair. He had just driven up from the station, and she held his cold
ears in her warm little hands, giving them a pull now and then to
emphasize what she was saying.

"The first sleigh-ride of the season, Papa Jack. Think of that! We've
had enough snow this wintah for any amount of coasting and sleighing if
it had only lasted. That's the trouble with Kentucky snow; it melts too
fast to be any fun. But to-night everything is just right, moon and all,
and the sleighs are to call for us at half-past seven, and we're going
for a glorious, gorgeous, grandiferous old sleigh-ride. At nine o'clock
we'll stop at The Beeches for refreshments."

"Yes," chimed in Betty from the hearth-rug, where she sat leaning
against her godmother's knee. "Mrs. Walton says we shall have music
wherever we go, like little Jenny that 'rode a cock-horse to Banbury
Cross.' She has a whole pile of horns and bells ready for us. It's
lovely of her to entertain both the clubs. She's asked the _Mu Chi
Sigma_ from the Seminary as well as our Order of Hildegarde."

"Oh, that reminds me," exclaimed Mr. Sherman, "although I don't know why
it should--I brought a letter up from the post-office for you, Lloyd."
Feeling in several pockets, he at last found the big square envelope he
was searching for.

"What a big fat one it is," said Lloyd, glancing at the postmark.
"Phoenix, Arizona! I don't know anybody out there."

"Arizona is where our mines are located," said Mr. Sherman, watching her
as she tore open the envelope.

"Oh, it's from Joyce Ware!" she cried. "See all the funny little
illustrations on the edge of the papah! And heah is a note inside for
you, mothah, from Mrs. Ware, and oh, what's this? How sweet!" A cluster
of orange blossoms fell out into her lap, brown and bruised from the
long journey, but so fragrant, that Betty, across the room, raised her
head with a long indrawn breath of pleasure.

"Listen! I'll read it aloud:"

                                         "'WARE'S WIGWAM, ARIZONA.

"'DEAREST LLOYD:--Mamma's note to your mother will explain how we
happened to stray away out here, next door to nowhere, and why we are
camping on the edge of the desert instead of enjoying the conveniences
of civilization in Kansas.

"'The sketch at the top of the page will give you an idea of the outside
of our little adobe house and the tents, so without stopping for
description I'll begin right here in the kitchen, where I am sitting,
waiting for a cake to bake. It's the cleanest, cosiest kitchen you ever
saw, for Jack and I have been cleaning and scrubbing for days and days.
It has all sorts of little shelves and cupboards and cuddy holes that we
made ourselves, and the new tins shine like silver. A tall screen in the
middle of the room shuts off one end for a dining-room, and the table is
set for supper. To-night we are to have our first meal in the wigwam.
Holland and Mary named it that, and painted the name on the porch post
in big bloody letters a little while ago.

"'Through the open door I can look into the other room, which is
library, studio, parlour, and living-room all in one. Everything is so
spick and span that nobody would ever guess what a dreadful time we had
putting on the paper and painting all the woodwork. I spilled a whole
panful of cold, sticky paste on Jack's head one day. We had made a
scaffolding of boxes and barrels. One end slipped and let me down. You
never saw such a sight as he was. I had to scrape his hair and face with
a spoon. Then so much of the paper wrinkled and would stick on crooked,
but now that the pictures are hung and the furniture in place, none of
the mistakes show.

"'Jack has gone hunting with Phil Tremont, a boy staying at Lee's ranch.
I am learning to shoot, too. I practised all one afternoon, and the gun
kicked so bad that my shoulder is still black and blue. Phil said the
loads were too heavy, and he is going to loan me his little rifle to
practise with. He is such a nice boy, and, oh, Lloyd! it's the strangest
thing!--he has seen _you_. I have those pictures of Locust hanging over
my easel, and, when he saw the photograph of you on Tar Baby, he
recognized it right away. He was on the train and saw you ride in at the
gate with a letter for your grandfather, and Hero following you.

       *       *       *       *       *

"'I didn't get any farther than this in my letter (because I spent so
much time making the illustrations) before Phil and Jack came back with
some quail they had shot. They were the proudest boys you ever saw, and
nothing would do but they must have those quail cooked for supper. They
couldn't wait till next day. Mamma had invited Phil to take supper with
us, and help make a sort of house-warming of our first meal in the new
home.

"'We had the jolliest kind of a time, and afterward he helped wipe the
dishes. I told him that I was writing to you, and he took this little
piece of orange blossom out of his buttonhole, and asked me if I didn't
want to send it to you as a sample of what we are enjoying in this land
of perpetual sunshine.

"'It isn't a sample of everything, however. The place has lots of
drawbacks. Oh, Lloyd, you can't imagine how lonesome I get sometimes. I
have been here a month, and haven't met a single girl my age. If there
was just one to be chums with I wouldn't mind the rest so much,--the
leaving school and all that. I don't mind the work, even the washing and
ironing and scrubbing,--it's just the lonesomeness, and the missing the
good times we used to have at the high school.

"'Save up your pennies, or else get a railroad pass, you and Betty, for
some of these days I'm going to give a wigwam-party. It will be a far
different affair from your house-party (could there ever be another such
heavenly time?), but there are lots of interesting things to see out
here: an ostrich farm, an Indian school and reservation, and queer old
ruins to visit. There are scissors-birds and Gila monsters--I can't
begin to name the things that would keep you staring. Mrs. Lee has a
Japanese chef, and a Mexican to do her irrigating, and a Chinaman to
bring her vegetables, and she always buys her wood of the Indians, so it
seems very foreign and queer at first. There is no lack of variety, so I
ought to be satisfied, and I am usually, except when I think of little
old Plainsville, and the boys and girls going up and down the dear old
streets to high school, and meeting in the library, and sitting on the
steps singing in the moonlight, and all the jolly, sociable village life
and the friends I have left behind for ever. Then it seems to me that I
can hardly stand it here. I wish you and Betty were with me this very
minute. _Please_ write soon. With love to you both and everybody else in
the family and the dear old valley,

                                                    "'Your homesick
                                                       "'JOYCE.'"

Mrs. Ware's letter was cheerful and uncomplaining, but there were tears
in Mrs. Sherman's eyes when she finished reading it aloud.

"Poor Emily," she said. "She was always such a brave little body. I
don't see how she can write such a hopeful letter under the
circumstances,--an invalid sent out into the wilderness to die, maybe,
with all those children. She has so much ambition to make something of
them, and no way to do it. Jack, if you go out to the mines this month,
as you talked of doing, I want you to arrange your trip so that you can
stop and see her."

Lloyd looked up in surprise. "When are you going, Papa Jack? Isn't it
queah how things happen!"

"The latter part of this month, probably. Mr. Robeson has invited me to
go out with a party in his private car. He is interested in the same
mines."

"I wonder--" began Mrs. Sherman, then stopped as Mom Beck came to
announce dinner. "I'll talk to you about it after awhile, Jack."

Somehow both Betty and Lloyd felt that it was not the summons to dinner
which interrupted her, but that she had started to speak of something
which she did not care to discuss in their presence.

"Arizona has always seemed such a dreadful place to me," said Lloyd,
hanging on her father's arm, as they went out to the dining-room. "I
remembah when you came back from the mines. It was yeahs ago, befo' I
could talk plainly. Mothah and Fritz and I went to the station to meet
you. Fritz had roses stuck in his collah, and kept barking all the time
as if he knew something was going to happen. You fainted when we got to
the house, and were so ill that you neahly died. I heard you talk about
a fiah at the mines, and evah since I've thought of Arizona as looking
like the Sodom and Gomorrah in my old pictuah book--smoke and fiah
sweeping across a great plain, and people running to get away from it."

"To me it's just a yellow square on a map," said Betty. "Of course, I've
read about the wonderful petrified forests of agate, and the great canyon
of the Colorado, but it's always seemed the last place in the world I'd
ever want to visit. It's terrible for Joyce to give up everything and go
out there to live."

"The Waltons were out there several years," said Mrs. Sherman. "They
were at Fort Huachuca, and learned to love it dearly. Ask them about it
to-night. They will tell you that Joyce is a very fortunate girl to have
the opportunity of living in such a lovely and interesting country, and
does not need any one's pity."

Little else was discussed all during dinner. Afterward they sat around
the fire in the drawing-room, still talking of the Wares and the strange
country to which they had moved, until a tooting of horns and a jingling
of bells announced the coming of the sleighing party. Both the girls
were into their wraps before the first sleigh reached the gate. They
stood waiting by the hall window, looking out on the stretches of
moon-lighted snow. What a cold, white, glistening world it was! One
could hardly imagine that it had ever been warm and green.

Lloyd put her nose into the end of her muff for a whiff of the orange
blossoms. She was taking Joyce's letter to show to the girls.

Betty, her eyes fixed on the stars, twinkling above the bare branches of
the locust-trees, caught the fragrance also, and it fired her romantic
little soul with a sudden thought.

"Lloyd," she exclaimed, "what if that orange blossom was an omen! What
if Phil were the one written for you in the stars!"

"Oh, Betty! The idea!" laughed Lloyd. "You're always imagining things
the way they are in books."

"But this happened just that way," persisted Betty. "His passing Locust
on the train and seeing you when you were a little girl, and then
finding your picture away out on the desert several years after, and
sending you a token of his remembrance by a friend, and orange blossoms
at that! If ever I finish that story of Gladys and Eugene, I'm going to
put something like that in it."

"Heah they come," interrupted Lloyd, as the sleighs dashed up to the
door. "Come on, Papa Jack and everybody. Give us a good send-off."

She looked back after her father had helped them into the sleigh, to
wave good-bye to the group on the porch. How interested they all were in
her good times, she thought. Even her grandfather had come to the door,
despite his rheumatism, to wish them a pleasant ride. Life was so sweet
and full. How beautiful it was to be dashing down the snowy road in the
moonlight! Was she too happy? Everybody else had troubles. Would
something dreadful have to happen by and by, to make up for all the
unclouded happiness of the present? She was not cold, but a sudden
shiver passed over her. Then she took up the song with the others, a
parody one of the Seminary girls had made for the occasion:

    "Oh, the snow falls white on my old Kentucky home.
     'Tis winter, the Valley is gay.
     The moon shines bright and our hearts are all atune,
     To the joy-bells jingling on our sleigh."

Down the avenue they went, past Tanglewood and Oaklea, through the
little village of Rollington, on and on through the night. Songs and
laughter, the jingling of bells and the sound of girlish voices floated
through all the valley. It was not every winter that gave them such
sport, and they enjoyed it all the more because it was rare. It was nine
o'clock when the horses swung around through the wide gate at The
Beeches, and stopped in front of the great porch, where hospitable
lights streamed out at every window across the snow.

There was such a gabble over the steaming cups of hot chocolate and the
little plates of oyster pates that Lloyd could not have read the letter
if she had tried. For there were Allison and Kitty and Elise passing the
bonbons around again and again, with hospitable insistence, and saying
funny things and making everybody feel that "The Beeches" was the most
charming place in the Valley for an entertainment of that kind.
Everybody was in a gale of merriment. Miss Allison was helping to keep
them so, and some of the teachers were there from the college, and two
or three darkies, with banjoes and mandolins, out in the back hall,
added to the general festivities by a jingling succession of old
plantation melodies.

However, Lloyd managed to tell Mrs. Walton about the letter, saying: "It
almost spoils my fun to-night to think of poah Joyce being away out in
that dreadful lonesome country."

"Why, my dear child," cried Mrs. Walton, "some of the happiest years of
my life were spent in that dreadful country, as you call it. It is a
charming place. Just look around and see how I have filled my home with
souvenirs of it, because I loved it so."

Lloyd's glance followed hers to the long-handled peace-pipe over the
fireplace, the tomahawks that, set in mortars captured during a battle
in Luzon, guarded the hearth instead of ordinary andirons, the baskets,
the rugs, and the Navajo portieres, and the Indian spears and pottery
arranged on the walls of the stairway.

"Even that string of loco berries over Geronimo's portrait has a
history," said Mrs. Walton. "Come down some day, and I'll tell you so
many interesting things about Arizona that you'll want to start straight
off to see it."

Her duties as hostess called her away just then, but her enthusiasm
stayed with Lloyd all the rest of the evening, until she reached home
and found her father and mother before the fire, still talking about the
Wares and their wigwam.

"Your mother wants me to take you with me when I go to Arizona," said
Mr. Sherman, drawing her to his knee. "Mr. Robeson had invited her to
go, but, as long as that is out of the question, she wants to arrange
for you to go in her place."

"And leave school?" gasped Lloyd.

"Yes, with Betty's help, you could easily make up lost lessons during
the summer vacation. You'd help her, wouldn't you, dear?"

"Yes, indeed!" cried Betty. "I'd get them for her while she was gone, if
I could."

"Oh, it's so sudden, it takes my breath away," said Lloyd, after a
moment's pause. "Pinch me, Betty! Shake me! And then say it all ovah
again, Papa Jack, to be suah that I'm awake!"

"Do you think you could get your clothes ready in ten days?" he asked,
when he had playfully given her the shaking and pinching she had asked
for.

"Oh, I don't need any new clothes," she cried. "But, Papa Jack, I'll
tell you what I do want, and that's a small rifle. _Please_ get me one.
I used to practise with Rob's air-gun till I could shoot as straight as
he could, and I got so that I could put a hole through a leaf at even
longer range than he could. Christmas, when Ranald Walton was home, we
all practised with his gun. It's lots of fun. Joyce is learning to
shoot, you know. _Please_ let me have one, Papa Jack. I'd rather have it
than a dozen new dresses."

Mr. Sherman looked at her in astonishment. "And _this_ is my dainty
Princess Winsome," he said at last. "I thought you were going for a
nice, tame little visit. I'll be afraid now to take you. You'll want to
come back on a bucking broncho, and dash through the Valley, shooting
holes through the crown of people's hats, and lassoing carriage horses
when you can't find any wild ones to rope. No, I can't take you now. I'm
afraid of consequences."

"No, honestly, Papa Jack," laughed Lloyd, "I'll be just as civilized as
anybody when I come back, if you'll only get me the rifle. I'll try to
be extra civilized, just to please you."

"We'll see," was the only answer he would give, but Lloyd, who had never
known him to refuse her anything, knew what that meant, and danced off
to bed perfectly satisfied. She was too excited to sleep. To see Joyce
again, to share the wigwam life, and make the acquaintance of Jack and
Holland and Mary, who had been such interesting personages in Joyce's
tales of them, to have that long trip with Papa Jack in Mr. Robeson's
private car, and a month's delightful holiday, seemed too much
happiness for one small person. All sorts of exciting adventures might
lie ahead of her in that month.

The stars, peeping through her curtains, twinkled in friendly fashion at
her, as if they were glad of her good fortune. Suddenly they made her
think of Betty's words: "What if Phil should be the one written for you
in the stars?" It _was_ strange, his having seen her so long ago, and
finding her picture in such an unexpected way. She wondered what he was
like, and if they would be good friends, and if she could ever think as
much of him as she did of her old playmates, Rob and Malcolm. Then she
fell asleep, wishing that it was morning, so that she could send a
letter to Joyce on the first mail-train, telling her that she was
coming,--that in less than two weeks she would be with her at Ware's
Wigwam.




CHAPTER VI.

WASH-DAY AND WASHINGTON


IT was wash-day at Ware's Wigwam; the first that Joyce and Jack had
personally conducted, as it was the first Monday after moving from Lee's
ranch.

[Illustration: "'WE ALLEE SAMEE LAK CHINAMEN,' HE SAID"]

Out in the back yard a big tin wash-boiler sat propped up on stones,
above a glowing camp-fire. From time to time Jack stooped to poke
another stick of mesquite into the blaze, or give the clothes in the
boiler a stir with an old broom-handle. Then tucking up his
shirt-sleeves more firmly above his elbows, he went back to the tub by
the kitchen door, and, plunging his arms into the suds, began the
monotonous swash and rub-a-dub of clothes and knuckles on the
wash-board.

"We allee samee lak Chinamen," he said to Joyce, who was bending over
another tub, rinsing and wringing. "Blimeby, when we do heap more
washee, a cue will glow on my head. You'll be no mo' Clistian lady.
You'll be lil'l heathen gel."

"I believe you're right," laughed Joyce. "I certainly felt like a
heathen by the time I had finished rubbing the first basket full of
clothes through the suds. The skin was off two knuckles, and my back was
so tired I could scarcely straighten up again. But it won't be so bad
next week. Mamma says that we may draw enough out of bank to buy a
washing-machine and a wringer, and that will make the work lots easier."

A long, shrill whistle out in the road made them both stop to listen.
"It's Phil," said Jack. "He said he would ride past this morning to show
us the new horse he is going to buy. My! It's a beauty bright!" he
exclaimed, peering around the corner of the kitchen, "Come out and look
at it."

Hastily wiping the suds from his arms, and giving a hitch to the
suspenders of his old overalls, he disappeared around the house. Joyce
started after him, then drew back, remembering her old shoes and wet,
faded gingham, as she caught sight of Phil, sitting erect as a
cavalryman on the spirited black horse. From the wide brim of his soft,
gray hat to the spurs on his riding-boots, he was faultlessly dressed. A
new lariat hung on the horn of his saddle, the Mexican quirt he carried
had mountings of silver on the handle, and the holster that held his
rifle was of handsomely carved leather. While he talked to Jack, the
horse stepped and pranced and tossed its head, impatient to be off.

"Come on out, Joyce, and look at it," called Phil.

"I can't," she answered, peeping around the corner of the kitchen. "I'm
running a Chinese laundry back here. Jack says I'm no longer a 'Clistian
lady.'"

"Do you want any help?" he called, but there was no answer. She had
disappeared. Phil was disappointed. It was for her admiration more than
Jack's that he had ridden by on the new horse. He was conscious that he
made a good appearance in the saddle, and he had expected her to show
some interest in his purchase. Usually she was so enthusiastic over
everything new. The work might have waited a few minutes, he thought.

But it was not the urgency of the work that sent Joyce back to the tubs
in such a hurry. It was the rebellious feeling that swept over her at
the sight of his holiday appearance. She was tired and hot and
bedraggled, having splashed water all over herself, and the contrast
between them irritated her.

"If I have to be a Polly-put-the-kettle-on all the days of my life, I'll
just _be_ one," she said, in a half-whisper, giving the towel she was
wringing a vicious twist. "I'm not going out there to have him feel
sorry for me. He's used to seeing girls who are always dainty and fresh,
like his sister Elsie, and I'm not going to let him see me looking like
a poor, bedraggled Cinderella. It isn't fair that some people should
have all the good things in life, and others nothing but the drudgery.

"Jack doesn't seem to mind it. There he stands out in the road in his
old faded, paint-smeared overalls, and his sleeves rolled up, never
caring how awkward and lanky he looks. He's taking as eager an interest
in that horse's good points as if he were to have the pleasure of riding
it. But then Jack hasn't the artistic temperament. He likes this wild
country out here, and he never can understand what a daily sacrifice it
is for me to live in such a place. My whole life is just a sacrifice to
mamma and the children."

By the time the basket was full of clothes, ready to be hung on the
line, Joyce had worked herself up to such a pitch of self-pity that she
felt like a martyr going to the stake. She carried the basket to the
sunny space behind the tents, where the line had been stretched. Here,
with her sunbonnet pulled over her eyes, she could see without being
seen. Phil was just riding away whistling. She watched him out of sight.
The desert seemed lonelier than ever when the sound of hoof-beats and
the cheery tune had passed. Her gaze wandered back to old Camelback
Mountain. "We'll never get away, you and I," she whispered. "All the
bright, pleasant things in life will ride by and leave us. Only the work
and the waiting and the loneliness will stay."

When she went back to the house with her empty basket, Jack was rubbing
away with a vigour that was putting holes in one of Holland's shirts.

"Why didn't you come out and see Phil's new horse?" he cried,
enthusiastically. "He let me try him, and he goes like a bird. And say,
Joyce, he knows where I could get the best kind of an Indian pony for
almost nothing, at a camp near Scottsdale. It is good size, and it's
broke either to the saddle or buggy, and the people will sell it for
only ten dollars. Just think of that. It's almost giving it away. The
man who had it died, and his wife couldn't take it back East with her,
and she told them to sell it for anything they could get. Don't you
think we could manage in some way to get it, Joyce?"

"Why, Jack Ware! What can you be thinking of!" she cried. "For us to
spend ten dollars on a horse that we don't need would be just as great
an extravagance as for some people to spend ten hundred. Don't you know
that we can only buy things that we absolutely have to eat or to wear?
You've surely heard it dinned into your ears long enough to get some
such idea into your head."

"We don't absolutely have to have a washing-machine and wringer," he
declared, nettled by Joyce's unusual tone. "A horse would be lots more
use. We could have it to bring wood up with from the desert when we've
burned all that's close by. And we can't go on all year borrowing a
horse from Mrs. Lee every time we want to go to town, or have to have a
new supply of groceries."

"But you know well enough that mamma's teaching Hazel, after awhile when
she gets well enough, will more than make up for the borrowing we will
do," answered Joyce. "Besides it would only be the beginning of a lot of
expense. There'd be feed and a saddle to start with."

"No, there wouldn't! There's all that alfalfa pasture going to waste
behind the house, and Mrs. Lee has a saddle hanging up in her attic
that somebody left on a board bill. She said I might use it as often as
I pleased."

"Well, we can't afford to spend ten dollars on any such foolishness,"
said Joyce, shortly. "So that is the end of it."

"No, it isn't the end of it," was the spirited answer. "I've set my
heart on having that pony, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take the
place of the washing-machine and wringer. You give me the five dollars
they would cost, and I'll do every bit of the rubbing and wringing every
Monday morning. I'll borrow the other five dollars, and give a mortgage
on the pony. I'll find some way to earn enough to pay it off before the
summer is over."

Joyce shook her head. "No, a mortgage makes a slave of anybody foolish
enough to chain himself up with one, Grandpa Ware always used to say.
I'm running the finances now, and I won't give my consent. I think it is
best to get the machine, and I don't intend to change my mind. You may
get a position next fall, and then I'd be left to do the work without
any machine to help. Besides, you sha'n't run in debt to get something
that nobody really needs."

"I do need it," insisted Jack, "and I don't see why, when you are only a
year older than I am, that you should have the say-so about the way all
the money is to be spent."

"Because mamma wishes me to. Don't you see that the very fact of your
wanting to be extravagant in this case, and go in debt and load yourself
down with a mortgage shows that I have better judgment than you?"

"Oh, you've got a great head for business!" sneered Jack. "Don't you see
that it wouldn't be the same as buying something to eat up or wear out?
It's an investment. You put the money into the pony instead of the bank,
and any time you want to get it out, you just sell the beast. I might be
able to get twice as much for him next fall when the tourists begin to
come into Phoenix for the winter."

"Yes, you might, but it would be more like Ware luck for it to cut
itself all to pieces on the barb-wire fences before then, or break its
legs stumbling into a gopher hole, or founder itself by getting into a
neighbour's oat-bin. Something would be sure to happen. The money is
safe where it is, and I believe in letting well enough alone."

"Banks bust sometimes, too," said Jack, moodily, "and _I_ believe that
'nothing venture, nothing have.'"

It was the first quarrel they had had in months. Each, feeling firmly
convinced of being in the right, grew indignant with the other, and they
passed from teasing banter to angry words, and then to an angrier
silence. "It won't be any harder for him to give up what he had set his
heart on than it is for me," thought Joyce, as she hung up the last
garment. "I have to do without things I want all the time. And I'm not
going to let him think that I'll give in if he teases long enough. I
wouldn't have any authority at all over the children if I wasn't firm
with them."

As Jack emptied the last tubful of water, and stood the wash-board up to
dry, he broke the angry silence that had lasted fully ten minutes.

"Holland has a dollar in his savings-bank, and Mary has seventy-five
cents. We could all chip in with what we have, and then go without
butter or something for awhile till we'd saved enough."

Joyce only gave an impatient shrug as she replied: "Much comfort we'd
get out of a horse that everybody had a share in. If Holland felt that
he'd sunk a dollar and several pounds of butter in that pony, he'd feel
privileged to ride it any hour of the day or night, no matter who
wanted it, and he'd do it, too. You might as well give it up, Jack. It
is selfish of you to insist on spending so much on just your own
pleasure."

"Selfish!" blazed Jack. "It's _you_ that's selfish, wanting to be so
bossy and have everything just your way. I haven't asked _you_ to do
without anything, have I, or to put in any of _your_ money? And if I do
the work of the washing-machine and wringer, I don't see why I shouldn't
have what they would cost, to do what I please with. _You're_ the
selfish one!"

He banged the tub up against the tree and walked off toward his tent,
buttoning his shirt-sleeves, and muttering to himself as he went.

"Now, he'll go and tell mamma, I suppose, and worry her," thought Joyce,
as she went into the kitchen. "But I'm too tired to care. If I hadn't
been so tired, I probably wouldn't have snapped him off so short, but it
just goes to prove that we can't do without a machine. The washing is
too hard for me without one. I can't afford to get so worn out every
week. It is all right for him to offer to take the place of one. He
might keep it up for weeks, and even months, but next fall, if he should
get a position in Phoenix, the money would be spent and I'd be left
with the bag to hold. I don't think that, under the circumstances, he
has any right to call me selfish. I'm _not_!"

The word stuck in her memory, and hurt, as she dragged herself wearily
into the sitting-room, and lay down on the couch. After she had pulled
the afghan over her shoulders and buried her face in one of the pillows,
a few hot tears trickled down through her closed eyelids, and made them
smart. The kitchen clock struck eleven.

"Oh, dear!" she said to herself, "I must get up in a few minutes and see
about dinner." But the next thing she knew, Norman was ringing the
dinner-bell in her ears, shouting that it was one o'clock, and that Jack
had dinner ready, and to come before it got cold.

"Oh, Jack, why didn't you call me?" she cried. "I didn't mean to fall
asleep. I only stretched out to rest for a few minutes."

He made no answer, busying himself in carrying a hot dish of poached
eggs and toast to the table, and bringing his mother's tea. He was
carrying on a lively conversation with her.

"Still mad, I suppose," thought Joyce, when he ignored her repeated
question. "But evidently he hasn't said anything to mamma about it."

The meal seemed an unusually cheerful one, for although Jack and Joyce
had nothing to say to each other, they kept up such a chatter with their
mother, that she ate her dinner serenely unconscious of their coolness
toward each other. Afterward she insisted upon washing the dishes, so
that Joyce could take a well-earned rest, and Jack go down to the ranch
to see Mr. Ellestad's new microscope, which had just come. Joyce would
not listen to her appeal that she was perfectly able to do that much
work, and that she needed the exercise, but finally consented to her
helping wipe the dishes, while she cleared the table and washed them.
But Jack, after a little urging, started down the road toward the ranch,
to spend a long, interesting afternoon there. As he went whistling out
of sight Mrs. Ware looked after him fondly.

"I know he's the best boy in the world," she said. "I wish I could
afford to give him some of the pleasures that other boys have."

"Seems to me he has about as much as the rest of us," said Joyce,
rattling the cups and saucers in the dish-pan. But a picture rose in her
mind as she spoke, that made her wish that she had not been so cross and
so positive. It was Phil Tremont, on his horse, as he had looked that
morning, handsome, fun-loving, and free to do as he pleased, and then
in sharp contrast, Jack, standing in the road beside him, in his old
outgrown, paint-smeared overalls, his fingers red and wrinkled from the
suds, called from his work to see a pleasure in which he could not
share. Now that she was rested and refreshed by her dinner, matters
looked different. She could even see the force of Jack's argument about
the pony being an investment, and she wished again that she had not been
so positive in her refusal.

But having once said no, Joyce felt that it would not be dignified to
yield. If she changed her mind this time, Jack would think that she was
inconsistent; and such is the unyielding policy of fifteen, that she
felt that she would rather be called selfish than to admit that she was
in the wrong or had been mistaken.

It was a long afternoon. The fact that she and Jack had quarrelled kept
recurring to her constantly, and made her uncomfortable and unhappy. He
came back from the ranch at supper-time as if nothing had happened,
however, and when she asked him some question about the new microscope,
he answered with a full description that made her feel he had forgotten
their morning disagreement.

"I don't believe that he cares so much about that pony after all," she
thought. After supper, when Holland and Mary had disposed of the dishes,
she drew out the kitchen-table, and began sprinkling clothes ready for
the next day's ironing. The boys had gone to their tent. The door was
open between the kitchen and the sitting-room so that the heat might
pass in to where Mrs. Ware sat knitting by the lamp. Mary was there
also, and her voice came out to Joyce shrilly, as if she were in the
room with her.

"It seems a waste of time for me to be learning new pieces to say at
school when I know at least a dozen old ones that I recited in
Plainsville that would be new out here. But teacher picked this out for
me. She's going to keep us in at recess if we don't know our pieces
Friday. This has forty-eight lines in it, and I've only four nights to
learn it in."

"That is not bad," said Mrs. Ware, consolingly. "Only twelve lines an
evening. Read it all to me, then I'll help you with the first quarter."

Joyce stopped her humming as Mary began dramatically:

"'A Boy of Seventy-six.' That's the name of it." She read unusually well
for a child of her age, and the verses were new to Joyce:

    "You have heard the story, time and again,
     Of those brave old heroes, the 'Minute Men,'
     Who left their homes to fight or fall,
     As soon as they heard their country's call.
     Let me tell you of one, unnamed, unknown,
     A brave boy-hero, who fought alone.
     When the breathless messenger drew rein
     He had started whistling, down the lane
     With his rod and line, to the brook for trout,
     But he paused as he heard the warning shout,
     And his father called to him, 'Ben, my son,
     I must be off to Lexington!
     There is little time for fishing now,
     You must take father's place behind the plough.'
     One quick good-bye! The boy stood still,
     Watching him climb the homeward hill--
     In and out of the house again,
     With his musket, to join the 'Minute Men.'
     Then he turned the furrows, straight and true,
     Just as he'd seen his father do.
     He dropped the corn in the narrow rows,
     And fought for its life with the weeds and crows.
     Oh, it was hard, as the days wore on,
     To take the place of that father, gone.
     The boyish shoulders could hardly bear
     All their burden of work and care.
     But he thought, 'It is for my country's sake
     That father's place at the plough I take.
     When the war is over, and peace is won,
     How proud he'll be of his little son!'
     But they brought him home to a soldier's grave,
     Wrapped in the flag he had died to save.
     And Ben took up his burden again,
     With its added weight of grief and pain,
     Saying bravely, 'In all things now
     I must take father's place behind the plough.'
     Seed-time and harvest came and went,
     Steadily still to the work he bent,
     For the family needed bread, and then,
     So did the half-starved fighting men.
     Only a boy! Not a hero bold,
     Whose deeds in the histories are told.
     Still, there fell under British fire,
     No braver son of a patriot sire
     Than this young lad, who for duty's sake
     Said, 'This is the task I'll undertake.
     I cannot fight for my country now,
     But I'll take father's place behind the plough.'"

"I wonder why it is," said Mary, thoughtfully, as she came to the end,
"that all the heroes live so far away that nobody knows them except the
people who write the books and poetry about them. I wish I knew a boy
like that."

"You do," said her mother, quietly. "One who has been just as faithful
to duty, just as much of a hero in his small way as Ben. Who said the
same thing, 'In all things now, I must take father's place behind the
plough,' and who has done it, too, so faithfully and well that he has
lifted a great burden from his mother's heart, and made living easier
for all the family."

"Why, mamma, do I know him? Was it somebody in Plainsville? What was his
name?"

"John Alwyn Ware," said her mother, with a smile, although her lips
trembled.

"John Alwyn Ware," repeated Mary, with a puzzled expression. "Why, that
was papa's name, and you said that he was a boy that I knew."

"Isn't it Jack's name, too?" asked her mother.

"Yes, so it is! But how could _he_ take his father's place behind the
plough? Papa was a lawyer, and never had any plough."

"Whatever is a man's life-work may be called his plough," explained Mrs.
Ware, gently, "and papa's duties were not all in his law-office. They
were at home, too, and there is where Jack tried to take his place. He
was such a little fellow. My first thought was, 'Oh, how am I ever going
to bring up my three boys without their father's help and noble
example!' and he came to me, his little face all streaked with tears,
and put his arms around me, and said, 'Don't cry, mother, I'll take
papa's place now, and help take care of the family. If I can't do
anything for awhile but just be a good boy, I'll do that much, and set
them a good example.' And from that day to this he has never given me an
anxious moment. He is a high-strung boy, fond of having his own way, and
it has often been a struggle for him to resist the temptation of doing
as his chums did, when they were inclined to be a little wild. But he
has always been true to his promise, and Holland and Norman have both
been easier to manage, because of the example of obedience he has always
set them. So you see the heroes don't always live so far away after all.
You've been living in the same house with one, and didn't know it."

Norman came clamouring into the kitchen for something that Holland had
sent for, and Joyce lost the rest of the conversation, but what she had
heard stayed with her. Little scenes that she had almost forgotten came
up in her mind. Now she understood why Jack had so often refused to join
in the larks of the other boys. It was not because he was lazy and
indifferent, as she had sometimes thought, when he had settled down with
a book at home, instead of going with them in the evenings. She
understood, too, why he never "answered back" or asked why. Not because
he had any less spirit than Holland, or cared less for his own way. It
was because of the promise he had made beside his father's coffin. He
was setting the highest example he knew of obedience and faithfulness to
duty.

"How could I have called him selfish?" she asked herself, "when this is
the first time he has asked for anything for his own pleasure since we
have been here. He has stayed at home and dug and delved like an old man
instead of a boy of fourteen, and of course it must be as dull for him
as it is for me. I suppose I didn't realize it, because he never
complains as I do. I've had so many more good times than he has," she
went on in her self-communing. "My trip to Europe, and the Little
Colonel's house-party,--and he was never even out of Plainsville until
we came here."

As she thought of the house-party, she caught the gleam of the little
ring, the lover's knot of gold on her finger that Eugenia had given her
to remind her of the Road of the Loving Heart, and she stood quite still
for a moment, looking at it.

"I believe I'll do it," she decided, finally, and fell to work so
energetically that the last damp roll of clothes was soon tucked away in
the basket. Then taking the candle from the shelf, and shading it
carefully with her hand, she hurried out to her tent. Dropping on her
knees beside her trunk, she began turning over its contents till she
reached a pink bonbon-box at the very bottom.

Inside the box was a letter, and inside the letter was a gold coin, the
five dollars that Cousin Kate had sent her Christmas. She had put it
sacredly away as a nest-egg, intending to add to it as she could, until
there was enough to pay for a course of instruction in illustrating, by
correspondence. The address of an art school which advertised to give
such lessons, was copied on the envelope.

As she turned the letter irresolutely in her hands, she heard Jack's
voice in the next tent, talking to Holland:

"I wonder who'll take my place in the high school nine this year?
Wouldn't I give my eyes to pitch for them when they play the Plainsville
'Invincibles'! Wish I could see old Charlie Scudder's red head behind
the bat again! And don't I wish I could hear him giving his call for me
out by the alley gate! I'd walk from here to Phoenix just to hear it
again."

"I don't miss the fellows much as I thought I would," said Holland, who
was hunting for a certain hook he wanted in what looked to be a hopeless
snarl of fishing-tackle. "There's some first-rate kids go to this
school, and I see about as much fun out here as I did at home."

"I suppose it would be different with me if I went to school," said
Jack. "But it gets mighty monotonous poking around the desert by
yourself, even if you have got a gun. Now that Phil Tremont has his
horse, that will cut me out from going with him, for I'll have to foot
it wherever I go."

"Oh, I know where there's a dandy Indian pony for sale over by
Scottsdale," began Holland. "George Lee told me about it. They're going
to put it up at auction Saturday, if they don't sell it before. Don't
you wish you had it?"

"You can bet your only dollar I do! I tried to talk Joyce into thinking
we could afford it, but she wouldn't be convinced."

"I don't see why she should always have the say-so," said Holland.
"She's only a year older than you are, anyhow. She sits down on
everything we want to do, as if she was our grandmother. She's too
bossy."

"No, she isn't," answered Jack, loyally. "She knows what she is talking
about. She's had a mighty tough time trying to make one dollar do the
work of two since we've been out here. And she's worked like a squaw,
and it's powerful hard on her having so much responsibility. What she
says in this wigwam _goes_, even if it doesn't suit our tastes!"

A warm little glow came into Joyce's heart as she knelt there beside the
trunk, unconsciously playing eavesdropper. How good it was of Jack to
uphold her that way with Holland, who was always resenting her
authority, and inclined to be rebellious. Hesitating no longer, she
reached into the tray of her trunk for the purse which held the monthly
housekeeping allowance. Taking out a crisp five-dollar bill, she folded
the coin in it, and ran out toward the boys' tent.

The candle-light, streaming through the canvas, made a transparency on
which the green-eyed gods of the Dacotahs stood out in startling
distinctness. Holland's shadow, bending over the fishing-tackle beside
the candle, reached to the top of the tent. Jack's waved its heels over
the foot-board of the bed on which he had thrown himself.

"Jack," she said, putting her head through the opening of the tent where
the flap was pinned back, "I've changed my mind about that investment.
I've decided to go in with you. I'll put in Cousin Kate's Christmas
money, and if you still want to take the place of the washing-machine
and wringer, we'll use the five dollars they would cost, to buy the
pony. Then I think the most appropriate name we could give it would be
_Washing_-ton!"




CHAPTER VII.

A SURPRISE


IN order to understand the excitement that prevailed at the Wigwam when
it was announced that the Little Colonel was on her way toward it, one
would first have to understand what an important part she had played in
the Ware household. To begin with, the place where she lived had always
seemed a sort of enchanted land to the children. "The Old Kentucky Home"
was their earliest cradle-song, and their favourite nursery-tales were
about the people and places of Lloydsboro Valley, where their mother's
happy girlhood had been passed.

They might grow tired of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Aladdin and
even Ali Baba and the forty thieves might lose their charm, but no story
failed to interest them that began "Once upon a time in Lloydsboro
Valley." These reminiscences had passed from Joyce to Jack, and on down
the line, with the high chair and the Cock Robin book and the red
building-blocks, belonging to each in turn, but claimed by all. Mary's
tears, Holland's tempers, and Norman's tantrums had many a time
disappeared as if by magic, at those familiar words.

After Joyce's return from the house-party at Locust, the Little Colonel
became the central figure of interest, and all the glamour with which
their childish imaginations had surrounded the place, now gathered
around her like a nimbus around a saint. To Mary, who had read the
"Princess Winsome" until she knew it all by heart, Lloyd was something
between an ideal princess, who played on a golden harp, and an ideal
little schoolgirl, who lived in a real palace, and did exactly as she
pleased. She could talk of nothing else, after the letter came, and
followed Joyce and her mother with innumerable questions, pausing often
before the pictures of Lloyd and Tarbaby.

The boys' interest in her coming was increased when they found that she
was going to bring a rifle, and that her father had promised to hire a
horse for her as soon as they arrived.

Phil, who came so often to the Wigwam now that he seemed almost one of
the family, caught so much of its enthusiasm over the coming guest,
that he planned picnics and excursions for every day of her visit. He
even had a voice in what he called the Council of War, in which it was
decided to let the two older boys move their cots out-of-doors. Holland
had been clamouring to sleep outside the tent ever since George Lee told
him that he had begun to do so, and that was what made the cowboys so
strong.

So the gaily decorated tent, with its "figures mystical and awful," was
made ready for Lloyd, and Norman took Joyce's place in his mother's
tent.

"She'll know that she's really out West when she once sets her eyes on
those gods of the Dacotahs," Holland said to Mary on their way to school
one morning. "As long as we call this the Wigwam, I think we ought to be
dressed up in war-paint and feathers when she gets here. I'll do it,
Mary, if you will. I'll dare you to. I'll double dare you!"

Usually a double dare never failed to have the desired effect upon Mary.
She would attempt anything he suggested. But it was too serious a matter
to risk the first impression that such an appearance would make upon
Lloyd, so she trudged on with a resolute shake of her little blond
braids and big blue bows.

"No, sir-ree, Holland Ware. I'm going to stay home from school that day,
and wear my very best white dress and my rosebud sash. It's just as good
as new if it is two years old, and the little spots on it where I
squirted orange-juice don't show at all when it's tied. And Joyce said
that she is going to put your hands to soak overnight, to see if she
can't get them clean for once, for if there's anything the Little
Colonel abominates, it's dirty hands and finger-nails. And you've got to
wear a necktie every day, and go into Phoenix and have your hair cut. So
there!"

"Oh, I have, have I?" repeated Holland, mimicking her tone. "If Joyce
has all those plans in her head, she can just get them out again. I'm
not going to be a dude for any old girl in the country, I don't care if
it is Lloyd Sherman. And if she is so dreadful particular as all that,
I'll do something to shock her every day, till she gets used to it. Yes,
I believe I'll come to the table the very first meal in a blanket, with
feathers in my hair, and if you dare tell anybody beforehand,
I'll--I'll--well, I'll get even with you in a way you won't like."

"Oh, Holland, please don't! _Please_ don't disgrace us," begged Mary,
who always took his threats in earnest. "It would be too dreadful. I'll
give you something nice if you'll promise not to."

"What will you give me?"

"What have I got that you want?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll have to think about it."

Holland had no intention of carrying out his threats, but he kept Mary
in a fever of anxiety all week, saying one hour that he'd think about
her offer, and the next that she didn't have anything he cared for, and
that he preferred the fun of tormenting the girls to anything she could
give.

Joyce drew a star on the kitchen calendar, over the date on which they
expected Lloyd to arrive; a big five-pointed red star. She rejoiced that
it fell on a Wednesday, for by that time the washing and ironing would
be out of the way. Her first experience in laundry-work made her look
ahead to the coming Mondays as weekly bugbears. But the second was not
so hard as the first. True to his promise, Jack did all the rubbing and
wringing, getting up at daybreak to start the fire under the big
wash-boiler out in the yard.

This morning, as he touched a match to the little pile of kindling, and
fanned the blaze with his hat, the new pony, grazing in the alfalfa
field, came up to the pasture-bars with a whinny, and put his head over
the fence, as if to watch him.

"Oh, you think you'll boss this job, do you, Mr. Washington?" said Jack,
who, in the short time he had had the pony, had grown as fond of him as
if he were a person, and who talked to him as if he had human
intelligence. "Well, you ought to take an interest in the washing, since
that's the way you got your name, and the reason you are here. Wait till
I get this boiler filled, and I'll bring you a lump of sugar."

Washington was a wiry little pony. He had a wicked light in his eyes,
and was too free with his heels at times, but he had been raised as a
household pet, and stood like a kitten while Jack rubbed his nose and
fed him sugar.

"Take it easy while you can," said Jack. "If I have to work like a dog
all morning on your account, to earn half the dollars that you cost us,
I'll put you through your paces this afternoon to make up for it. You'll
think that you are the Wild Mazeppa by the time we get back. Oh, you're
such a nice old fellow!"

Nobody was near to see the impulsive way in which the boy threw his arms
around the pony's neck and hugged him tight. The feeling of possession
made him happy as a king, as he sat on the topmost bar braiding
Washington's shaggy forelock, while the sun came up over the Camelback,
and the morning chorus of bird-calls swelled louder and sweeter over the
awakening world.

The fire under the boiler was crackling merrily, and the water was
steaming, when Joyce came out of her tent and started toward the
kitchen. She stopped a moment by the pasture-bars to reach through and
give the pony a friendly stroke, for she was almost as proud and fond of
him as Jack. She had had several delightful rides on him; once with Jack
for company, on Phil's new horse, and twice with Phil, when they had
raced for miles down the sandy road, past olive orchards and orange
groves, sweet with the coming of spring.

"I'm going to clip his mane to-morrow," said Jack, as he slipped down
from his seat, and followed Joyce toward the kitchen. "He must look his
best when Lloyd comes."

"We've done everything to that tune for a week," laughed Joyce. "'When
Lloyd comes' has grown to be a sort of refrain, running through all our
conversation. You notice now, at breakfast, and see how often it will be
used."

Holland was the first to repeat the well-worn phrase, as he took his
seat at the table, and waited hungrily for his plate to be served.

"When Lloyd comes you'll have some of those good little corn muffins for
breakfast, won't you, Joyce? Kentucky people aren't used to cold bread."

Joyce smiled at Jack as the words they were waiting for were repeated,
and then almost mechanically used them herself in her answer. "We'll
have them once in awhile, I suppose, but we can't afford a very great
change in our bill of fare. We'll have a mighty skimpy dinner to-day,
for there's not much left over from Sunday, and we'll be too busy
washing to stop to cook. But I want to have a big baking before Lloyd
comes. If I go in to meet her Wednesday, in the ranch surrey, I'll have
to do the extra cooking to-morrow afternoon, I suppose, after the
ironing is out of the way."

Mary cast an inquiring glance at the red star on the calendar.

"Only to-day and to-morrow, then I can stay home the day after that when
Lloyd comes, and wear my best white dress and my rosebud sash."

"Oh, that will be joyful," chanted Holland, imitating her tone.

"I wish that I were able to help you more with the work," said Mrs.
Ware, wistfully. "Then you would have more time for preparation. Norman
and I can manage the tent work, I think, this morning. Then I'll go down
to the seat under the willows, and finish that Indian head sofa pillow.
We must have that done before Lloyd comes."

"Seems to me that I can hardly wait," said Mary, giving an impatient
little wiggle that nearly upset her glass of milk.

"I wish Betty were coming, too," said Joyce. "She would be making up
stories from morning till night about the strange things out here; but
she wouldn't have much peace. You children would never let her out of
your sight."

"Like Davy did at the cuckoo's nest," said Mary, who knew Betty's
history almost as well as her own, and loved dearly to talk about it.
Betty's devotion to her godmother since she had gone to live at Locust,
and her wonderful gift for writing verses and stories made her almost as
interesting to Mary as the Little Colonel herself. As she moved about
the house after breakfast, doing the little duties that fell to her lot
before school-time, she chanted in a happy undertone all the play of the
"Rescue of the Princess Winsome," from beginning to end.

Sir Feal, the faithful knight, had been associated in her mind with
Phil, since the day he rescued her from her fright when she was running
away from the Indian. She was the princess, and Phil the gallant knight,
who, she dreamed in her romantic little heart, might some day send her
messages by the morning-glories and forget-me-nots, as Sir Feal had
done. Of course, not now, but some day when she was grown, and wore
long, lovely dresses, and had a beautiful voice. She had pictured
herself many a time, standing by a casement window with a dove clasped
to her breast, and singing the song, "Flutter, and fly, flutter, and
fly, bear him my heart of gold."

But now that the real princess was coming, she lost interest in her own
little day-dreams, which were of such a far-away time and so vague and
shadowy, and began dreaming them for Lloyd. She wondered what Phil would
think of her when they first met. She had already recited the entire
play to him, and showed him the miniature, and, as he studied the sweet
face at the casement, bending over the dove, he had hummed after Mary in
an absent-minded sort of way:

    "Spin, spin, oh, golden thread,
     He dreams of me night and day.
     The poppy's chalice is sweet and red,
     Oh, Love will find a way."

She was still humming it this morning when she came out of the back
door, ready to start to school, and her thoughts were full of the play.

"Joyce," she remarked, critically, pausing to watch her sister put more
wood on the camp-fire and poke the clothes in the boiler with the end of
an old broom-handle, "you look like the witch in the play:

                    "'On the fire
    I'll pile my faggots higher and higher,
    And in the bubbling water stir
    This hank of hair, this patch of fur.
    Bubble and boil, and snake-skin coil!
    This charm shall all plans but the Ogre's foil.'"

Joyce laughed, and Mary, slipping through the bars, followed Holland
across lots to school. "I do feel like a witch in this old dress and
sunbonnet," she said, "and I must look like one. But no one ever comes
here in the mornings but Phil, and he has had his orders to stay away on
Mondays."

"What is the use of worrying about how you look?" asked Jack. "Nobody
expects a fellow to play Chinese laundryman with a high collar and kid
gloves on."

Sousing the tubful of clothes into the rinse-water, Joyce went on
vigorously with her morning's work. She and Jack relapsed into busy
silence as the morning wore on, and when the clock struck eleven,
neither had spoken for nearly an hour.

Suddenly a sound of wheels, coming rapidly along the road, and a child's
high-pitched voice made them both stop and look up to listen. "Aren't we
getting back-woodsy!" Joyce exclaimed, as Jack shook the suds from his
arms, and ran to the corner of the kitchen to watch a buggy drive past.
"So few people come out this desert road, that it is really an event to
see any one. I suppose we ought not to be blamed for staring."

"It is Hazel Lee," said Jack. "I'm sure that's her voice. There must be
some new boarders at the ranch, for there's a strange gentleman and a
girl in the buggy with her, and she's standing up in front pointing out
the country to them."

Joyce came and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, that's Hazel," she said.
"She's the knowingest little thing I ever saw for a child of five. You
couldn't lose her anywhere around this region, and she is as good as a
guide-book, for giving information. Mr. Ellestad was laughing the other
day about her disputing with the White Bachelor over the market price of
chickens. She was in the right, too, and proved it. She hears
everything, and never forgets anything she hears."

[Illustration: "'I THOUGHT WE'D NEVAH, NEVAH GET HEAH!'"]

"She's saying something now to amuse those people mightily," said Jack,
as a hearty laugh rang out above the rattle of wheels. Joyce transferred
her gaze from the chubby, bareheaded child, leaning over the dashboard
with eager gestures, to the two strangers behind her. Then she grasped
Jack's elbow with a little cry of astonishment. "It's Lloyd!" she
gasped. "Lloyd Sherman and her father, two days ahead of time. What
shall we do? Everything is in a mess, and nothing in the house for
dinner!"

That instant Hazel's bright eyes spied them, her plump little finger
pointed them out, and Joyce had no more time to consider appearances;
for, springing over the wheel, Lloyd came running toward her, calling in
the soft Southern accent that was the sweetest music to Joyce's ears,
"Oh, you deah, darling old thing! What made you move away out to the
edge of nowhere? I thought we'd nevah, nevah get heah!"

In the delight of seeing her again, Joyce forgot all about things being
topsyturvy, and how little there was in the house for dinner. She even
forgot to introduce Jack, who stood awkwardly waiting in the background,
till Mr. Sherman, amused at the girls' absorption in each other,
stepped out of the buggy and came forward, laughing.

"It looks as if the two Jacks will have to introduce themselves," he
said, holding out his hand. Jack's awkwardness vanished instantly at
this hearty greeting, and a moment later he was shaking hands with Lloyd
as easily as Joyce was welcoming Lloyd's father, wholly indifferent to
his outgrown overalls and rolled-up shirt-sleeves.

In the meantime, Hazel, who was a major-general in her small way for
comprehending situations, had, of her own accord, raced off to find Mrs.
Ware and bring her to welcome the unexpected guests.

"And you are Aunt Emily!" exclaimed Lloyd, turning with outstretched
hands as the sweet-faced little woman came toward them. "Mothah said you
wouldn't mind if I called you that, because you and she have always been
such deah friends."

There were tears in Mrs. Ware's eyes as she returned the impulsive kiss.
She had expected to be fond of Elizabeth's only daughter. She had hoped
to find her pretty and sweet, but she had not looked for this
winsomeness, which had been the Little Colonel's greatest charm since
babyhood. With that greeting, Lloyd walked straight into her heart.

The surprise ended more satisfactorily than most surprises do, for,
while Jack was unhitching the horse, and Mrs. Ware was talking over old
times with Mr. Sherman, whom she had known in her school-days, some one
went whizzing around the house on a bicycle.

"It's Jo, the Japanese chef from the ranch," said Joyce, springing up
from the front door-step where she sat with Lloyd, and starting back to
the kitchen to ask his errand.

"Oh, let me go, too," cried Lloyd, following. "I nevah saw a Jap close
enough to speak to."

Lloyd could not understand the pigeon-English with which he delivered a
basket he had brought, but it was evidently a funny proceeding to Jo. He
handed it over as if it had been a joke, doubling up like a jack-knife
as he pointed to the contents, and laughing so contagiously that Joyce
and Lloyd could not help laughing, too.

"He not velly nice pie, maybe," giggled Jo. "But you eat him allee same.
Mis' Lee say you not lookee for comp'nee. You not have nuzzing cook."

"Did Mrs. Lee tell you to bring the basket, Jo?" asked Joyce.

He shook his head. "Mis' Lee say take soup," pointing to the large
glass jar of clearest consomme, smoking hot, which Joyce had just lifted
from the basket. "I, _me_, bling along the pie, for my compli_ment_. She
no care. She kind, Clistian lady."

"She certainly is," laughed Joyce. "Now we can at least begin and end
our dinner in style. That's a _lovely_ pie, Jo; the prettiest I ever
saw."

The little almond eyes twinkled, as he watched her hold up the dainty
pastry with its snowy meringue for Lloyd to admire.

"Aw, he not velly good pie," protested Jo, with a self-conscious smirk,
knowing in his soul that it was the perfection of pastry, and eager to
hear Joyce say so again. "I make-a heap much betta nex-a time."

Then, with another laugh, he whizzed away on his wheel, pausing under
the pepper-trees to catch up Hazel, and take her home on his
handle-bars.

"Joyce," asked Lloyd, as she watched him disappear down the road, "did
you uncawk a bottle, or rub Aladdin's lamp? I feel as if I had walked
into the Arabian nights, to have a foreign-looking, almond-eyed chef
suddenly appear out of the desert with consomme and pie, like a genie
out of a bottle."

"It doesn't happen every day," laughed Joyce. "I suppose that after you
stopped at the ranch to inquire the way here, and picked up Hazel for a
guide, that it occurred to Mrs. Lee that we were not looking for you
until Wednesday, and that, as this is our wash-day, maybe we wouldn't
have a very elaborate dinner prepared, and she thought she would help us
out in a neighbourly way. Jo enjoyed coming. When we were at the ranch,
he was always making delicious little extra dishes for mamma."

"Oh, I hope our coming soonah than you expected hasn't made a
difference!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I nevah thought about yoah doing yoah own
work. Mr. Robeson decided not to stop in New Mexico as long as he had
planned, and, when I found that would put us heah two days soonah, I
wouldn't let Papa Jack telegraph. I'm so sorry."

"Don't say another word about it," interrupted Joyce. "The only
difference it makes is to you and your father. You've not been received
in quite such good style as if we'd been dressed in our best bibs and
tuckers, but maybe you'll feel more at home, dropping right down in the
middle of things this way."

Lloyd felt as if she certainly had dropped down in the middle of things,
into a most intimate knowledge of the Ware family's affairs. For, as
Joyce circled around, setting the table, she saw that a pitcher of milk,
bread and butter, and some cold boiled potatoes, sliced ready to fry,
was all that the pantry held for dinner. If Joyce had spoken one word of
apology, Lloyd would have felt exceedingly uncomfortable, but she only
laughed as she put the consomme on the stove to keep hot, and set out
the pie-plates on the sideboard.

"Lucky for you," she said, "that the genie came out of his bottle. We
were spending all our energy in rushing through the laundry work, so
that we could make grand preparations for to-morrow, but we couldn't
have equalled Jo, no matter how hard we tried."

While Joyce, talking as fast as she worked, fried the potatoes and
sliced the bread, Jack wrung out the last basketful of clothes and hung
them on the line, and then disappeared in his mother's tent to make
himself presentable for dinner. Lloyd had already had a peep into the
tent that she was to share with Joyce, and had called her father to come
and have a laugh with her over the green-eyed gods of the Dacotahs which
were to guard her slumbers during her visit to the Wigwam. He was to
leave that same night, and go on to the mines with Mr. Robeson and his
party.

Her trunk was brought out from town soon after dinner, and, while she
partly unpacked it, putting the things she would need oftenest into the
bureau drawers that Joyce had emptied for her, Jack and Mr. Sherman
drove away to look at the horses one of the neighbours kept to hire to
tourists. They came back later with a shaggy Indian pony, which Lloyd at
once mounted for a trial ride.

Joyce went with her on Washington as far as the White Bachelor's. Lloyd
was not accustomed to a cross saddle, or to guiding a horse by the
pressure of the bridle-reins against its neck, so they rode slowly at
first. When they were almost opposite the camp at Lee's ranch, Joyce saw
a familiar little figure trudging along the road, and wished with
sisterly solicitude that they could avert a meeting. It was Mary on her
way home from school, dusty and dishevelled, as usual at such times, one
hair-ribbon lost, and the braid it had bound hanging loose and limp over
her ear. Joyce was not near enough to see, but she felt sure that her
shoe-laces were dangling, that there was ink on her hands and maybe her
face, and that at least one button, if not more, had burst loose from
the back of her dress. She knew that the child would be overwhelmed
with mortification if she should come face to face with the Princess
Winsome in such a condition, when she had set her heart upon appearing
before her in her white dress and rosebud sash.

Before Joyce could think of an excuse to turn back, Mary had settled the
matter for herself. Hazel had stopped her at the gate to tell her of the
unexpected arrival, so she was not wholly unprepared for this sudden
meeting. Darting up the high bank of the irrigating ditch like a little
gray lizard, she slid down on the other side into its dry bed and
crouched there till they passed. There had been no water running for
several days, but it would have made no difference to Mary. She would
have plunged in just the same, even if it had been neck deep. She simply
could not let the adored Little Colonel see her in such a plight.

Joyce almost laughed aloud at the frantic haste in which she scuttled
out of sight, but seeing that Lloyd had been too absorbed in guiding her
pony to notice it, she said nothing, and delayed their return until she
was sure that Mary was safe in her tent. So it was that when Lloyd went
back to the Wigwam one member of the Ware family was arrayed in all her
glory according to the original programme. Mary stood out under the
pepper-trees, washed, combed, and clad, painfully conscious of her
festive garments, which had had so few occasions to be donned on the
desert, and in a quiver of eagerness. It was not only Lloyd Sherman who
was coming toward her up the road. It was the Little Colonel, the Queen
of Hearts, the Princess Winsome, the heroine of a hundred familiar
tales, and the beautiful Dream-Maiden around whom she had woven all she
knew or imagined of romance.




CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE DESERT OF WAITING


LLOYD sat with her elbows on the white kitchen table, watching Joyce at
her Saturday afternoon baking. Five busy days had passed since her
coming, and she felt almost as much at home in the Wigwam as any of the
Wares. Phil had been there every day. Mrs. Lee had invited her to the
ranch to tea, where she had met all the interesting boarders she had
heard so much about. Jack, Holland, and Norman devoted themselves to her
entertainment, and Mary followed her so adoringly, and copied so
admiringly every gesture and intonation, that Holland called her "Miss
Copy-cat" whenever he spoke to her out of his mother's hearing.

Lloyd could not fail to see how they all looked up to her, and it was
exceedingly pleasant to be petted and deferred to by everybody, and on
all occasions. The novelty of the place had not yet worn off, and she
enjoyed watching Joyce at her housekeeping duties, and helped whenever
she would allow it.

"How white and squashy that dough looks," she said, as Joyce turned it
deftly out on the moulding-board and began kneading it. "I'd like to put
my fingahs in it the way you do, and pat it into shape, and pinch in the
cawnahs. I wish you'd let me try to make a loaf next week. Will you,
Joyce?"

"You may now, if you want to," said Joyce. Lloyd started to her tent to
wash her hands, but Jack's shout out in the road stopped her as she
reached the door. He was galloping toward the house as fast as
Washington could carry him, and she waited to hear what he had to say.

"Get your rifle, quick, Lloyd!" he called, waving his hat excitedly.
"Chris says that the river is full of ducks. We can get over there and
have a shot at them before supper-time if we hurry. I'll catch your pony
and saddle him while you get ready."

"How perfectly splendid!" cried Lloyd, her eyes shining with pleasure.
"I'll be ready in almost no time." Then, as he galloped on toward the
pasture, she turned to Joyce. "Oh, I wish _you_ could go, too!"

"So do I," was the answer; "but it's out of the question. We've only the
one horse, you know, and I haven't any gun, and I can't leave the
baking, so there's three good reasons. But I'm glad you have the chance,
Lloyd. Run along and get ready. Don't you bother about me."

By the time Jack came back leading Lloyd's pony, she was ready and
waiting at the kitchen door, in her white sweater and brown corduroy
riding-skirt. Her soft, light hair was gathered up under a little
hunting-cap, and she carried her rifle in its holster, ready to be
fastened to her saddle.

"Oh, I wish you were going, too, Joyce!" she exclaimed again, as she
stood up in the stirrups and smoothed the folds of the divided skirt.
Settling herself firmly in the saddle and gathering up the reins with
one hand, she blew her an airy kiss with the other, and started off at
the brisk pace Jack set for her on Washington.

Joyce called a laughing good-bye after them, but, as she stood shading
her eyes with her hand to watch them ride away, all the brightness
seemed to die out of the mid-afternoon sunshine.

"How much I should have enjoyed it!" she thought. "I could ride as well
as Jack if I had his pony, and shoot as well as Lloyd if I had her
rifle, and would enjoy the trip to the river as much as either of them
if I could only leave the work. But I'm like that old Camelback
Mountain over there. I'll never get away. It will be this way all the
rest of my life."

Through the blur of tears that dimmed her sight a moment, the old
mountain looked more hopeless than ever. She turned and went into the
house to escape the sight of it. Presently, when the loaves were in the
oven, and she had nothing to do but watch the baking, she brought her
portfolio out to the kitchen and began looking through it for a sketch
she had promised to show to Lloyd. It was the first time she had opened
the portfolio since she had left Plainsville, and the sight of its
contents made her fingers tingle. While she glanced over the sketches
she had taken such pleasure in making, both in water-colours and pen and
ink, her mother came into the kitchen.

"Joyce," she said, briskly, "don't you suppose we could afford some
cookies while the oven is hot? I haven't baked anything for so long that
I believe it would do me good to stir around in the kitchen awhile. I'll
make some gingersnaps, and cut them out in fancy shapes, with a boy and
girl apiece for the children, as I always used to make. Are there any
raisins for the eyes and mouths?"

It seemed so much like old times that Joyce sprang up to give her
mother a squeeze. "That will be lovely!" she cried, heartily. "Here's an
apron, and I'll beat the eggs and help you."

"No, I want to do it all myself," Mrs. Ware protested. "And I want you
to take your sketching outfit, and go down to the clump of willows where
Jack put the rustic bench for me. There are lovely reflections in the
irrigating canal now, and the shadows are so soft that you ought to get
a very pretty picture. You haven't drawn any since we left home, and I'm
afraid your hand will forget its cunning if you never practise."

"What's the use," was on the tip of Joyce's tongue, but she could not
dim the smile on her mother's face by her own hopeless mood, and
presently she took her box of water-colours and started off to the seat
under the willows. Mary and Norman, like two muddy little beavers, were
using their Saturday afternoon playtime in building a dam across the
lateral that watered the side yard. Joyce stood watching them a moment.

"What's the use of your doing that?" she asked, impatiently. "It can't
stay there. You'll have to tear it down when you stop playing, and then
there'll be all your work for nothing."

"We don't care, do we, Norman?" answered Mary, cheerfully. "It's fun
while we're doing it, isn't it, Norman?"

As Joyce walked on, Mary's lively chatter followed her, and she could
hear her mother singing as she moved about the kitchen. She was glad
that they were all happy, but somehow it irritated her to feel that she
was the only discontented one. It made her lonely. She opened her box
and spread out her material, but she was in no mood for painting. She
couldn't get the right shade of green in the willows, and the
reflections in the water were blotchy.

"It's no use to try," she said, finally. "Mamma was right. My hand has
already lost its cunning."

Leaning back on the rustic seat, she began idly tracing profiles on the
paper, scarcely conscious of what she was doing. People's faces at
first, then the outline of Camelback Mountain. Abstractedly, time after
time, she traced it with slow sweeps of her brush until more than a
score of kneeling camels looked back at her from the sheet of paper.

Presently a cough just behind her aroused her from her fit of
abstraction, and, turning hastily, she saw Mr. Ellestad, the old
Norwegian, coming toward her along the little path from the house. He
had been almost a daily visitor at the Wigwam since they moved into it,
not always coming in, usually stopping for only a moment's chat under
the pepper-trees, as he strolled by. But several times he had spent an
entire morning with them, reading aloud, while Joyce ironed and her
mother sewed, and Norman built block houses on the floor beside them.
Once he had taken tea with them. He rarely came without bringing a book
or a new magazine, or something of interest. And even when he was
empty-handed, his unfailing cheerfulness made his visits a benefaction.
Mary and Norman called him "Uncle Jan," such a feeling of kinship had
grown up between them.

"Mary said you were here," he began, in his quaint, hesitating fashion,
"so I came to find you. I have finished my legend at last,--the legend I
have made about Camelback Mountain. You know I have always insisted that
there should be one, and as tradition has failed to hand one down to us,
the task of manufacturing one has haunted me for three winters. Always,
it seems, the old mountain has something to say to me whenever I look at
it, something I failed to understand. But at last I have interpreted its
message to mankind."

With a hearty greeting, Joyce moved over to make room for him upon the
bench, and, as he sat down, he saw the sheet of paper on her lap
covered with the repeated outlines of the old mountain.

"Ah! It has been speaking to you also!" he exclaimed. "What did it say?"

"Just one word," answered Joyce,--"'_Hopeless_!' Everything out here is
hopeless. It's useless to try to do anything or be anything. If fate has
brought you here, kneel down and give up. No use to struggle, no use to
hope. You'll never get away."

He started forward eagerly. "At first, yes, that is what I thought it
said to me. But now I know it was only the echo of my own bitter mood I
heard. But it is a mistake; that is not its message. Listen! I want to
read it to you."

He took a note-book from his pocket. "Of course, it is crude yet. This
is only the first draft. I shall polish it and study every word, and fit
the sentences into place until the thought is crystallized as a real
legend should be, to be handed down to future generations. Then people
will not suspect that it is a home-made thing, spun from the fancy of
one Jan Ellestad, a simple old Norwegian, who had no other legacy to
leave the world he loved. This is it:

"'Once upon a time, a caravan set out across the desert, laden with
merchandise for a far-distant market. Some of the camels bore in their
packs wine-skins that held the richest vintage of the Orient. Some bore
tapestries, and some carried dyestuffs and the silken fruits of the
loom. On Shapur's camel was a heavy load of salt.

"'The hope of each merchant was to reach the City of his Desire before
the Golden Gate should close. There were other gates by which they might
enter, but this one, opening once a year to admit the visiting rajahs
from the sister cities, afforded a rare opportunity to those fortunate
enough to arrive at the same time. It was the privilege of any who might
fall in with the royal retinue to follow in its train to the ruling
rajah's palace, and gain access to its courtyard. And wares displayed
there for sale often brought fabulous sums, a hundredfold greater
sometimes than when offered in the open market.

"'Only to a privileged few would the Golden Gate ever swing open at any
other time. It would turn on its hinges for any one sent at a king's
behest, or any one bearing something so rare and precious that only
princes could purchase. No common vender could hope to pass its shining
portal save in the rear of the train that yearly followed the rajahs.

"'So they urged their beasts with all diligence. Foremost in the
caravan, and most zealous of all, was Shapur. In his heart burned the
desire to be first to enter the Golden Gate, and the first one at the
palace with his wares. But, half-way across the desert, as they paused
at an oasis to rest, a dire lameness fell upon his camel, and it sank
upon the sand. In vain he urged it to continue its journey. The poor
beast could not rise under its great load.

"'Sack by sack he lessened its burden, throwing it off grudgingly and
with sighs, for he was minded to lose as little as possible of his
prospective fortune. But even rid of its entire load, the camel could
not rise, and Shapur was forced to let his companions go on without him.

"'For long days and nights he watched beside his camel, bringing it
water from the fountain and feeding it with the herbage of the oasis,
and at last was rewarded by seeing it struggle to its feet and take a
few limping steps. In his distress of mind at being left behind by the
caravan, he had not noticed where he had thrown the load. A tiny rill,
trickling down from the fountain, had run through the sacks and
dissolved the salt, and when he went to gather up his load, only a
paltry portion was left, a single sackful.

"'"Now, Allah has indeed forgotten me!" he cried, and cursing the day
that he was born, he rent his mantle, and beat upon his breast. Even if
his camel were able to set out across the desert, it would be useless to
seek a market now that he had no merchandise. So he sat on the ground,
his head bowed in his hands. Water there was for him to drink, and the
fruit of the date-palm, and the cooling shade of many trees, but he
counted them as naught. A fever of unrest consumed him. A baffled
ambition bowed his head in the dust.

"'When he looked at his poor camel kneeling in the sand, he cried out:
"Ah, woe is me! Of all created things, I am most miserable! Of all dooms
mine is the most unjust! Why should I, with life beating strong in my
veins, and ambition like a burning simoom in my breast, be left here
helpless on the sands, where I can achieve nothing, and can make no
progress toward the City of my Desire?"

"'One day, as he sat thus under the palms, a bee buzzed about him. He
brushed it away, but it returned so persistently that he looked up with
languid interest. "Where there are bees, there must be honey," he said.
"If there be any sweetness in this desert, better that I should go in
its quest than sit here bewailing my fate."

"'Leaving the camel browsing by the fountain, he followed the bee. For
many miles he pursued it, till far in the distance he beheld the
palm-trees of another oasis. He quickened his steps, for an odour rare
as the perfumes of Paradise floated out to meet him. The bee had led him
to the Rose Garden of Omar.

"'Now Omar was an alchemist, a sage with the miraculous power of
transmuting the most common things of earth into something precious. The
fame of his skill had travelled to far countries. So many pilgrims
sought him to beg his wizard touch that the question, "Where is the
house of Omar?" was heard daily at the gates of the city. But for a
generation that question had remained unanswered. No man knew the place
of the house of Omar, since he had taken upon himself the life of a
hermit. Somewhere, they knew, in the solitude of the desert, he was
practising the mysteries of his art, and probing deeper into its
secrets, but no one could point to the path leading thither. Only the
bees knew, and, following the bee, Shapur found himself in the old
alchemist's presence.

"'Now Shapur was a youth of gracious mien, and pleasing withal. With
straightforward speech, he told his story, and Omar, who could read the
minds of men as readily as unrolled parchments, was touched by his tale.
He bade him come in and be his guest until sundown.

"'So Shapur sat at his board and shared his bread, and rose refreshed by
his wine and his wise words. And at parting, the old man said, with a
keen glance into his eyes: "Thou thinkest that because I am Omar, with
the power to transmute all common things to precious ones, how easily I
could take the remnant of salt that is still left to thee in thy sack
and change it into gold. Then couldst thou go joyfully on to the City of
thy Desire, as soon as thy camel is able to carry thee, far richer for
thy delay."

"'Shapur's heart gave a bound of hope, for that is truly what he had
been thinking. But at the next words it sank.

"'"Nay, Shapur, each man must be his own alchemist. Believe me, for thee
the desert holds a greater opportunity than kings' houses could offer.
Give me but thy patient service in this time of waiting, and I will
share such secrets with thee that, when thou dost finally win to the
Golden Gate, it shall be with wares that shall gain for thee a royal
entrance."

"'Then Shapur went back to his camel, and, in the cool of the evening,
urged it to its feet, and led it slowly across the sands. And because it
could bear no burden, he lifted the remaining sack of salt to his own
back, and carried it on his shoulders all the way. When the moon shone
white and full in the zenith over the Rose Garden of Omar, he knocked at
the gate, calling: "Here am I, Omar, at thy bidding, and here is the
remnant of my salt. All that I have left I bring to thee, and stand
ready now to yield my patient service."

"'Then Omar bade him lead his camel to the fountain, and leave him to
browse on the herbage around it. Pointing to a row of great stone jars,
he said: "There is thy work. Every morning before sunrise, they must be
filled with rose-petals, plucked from the myriad roses of the garden,
and the petals covered with water from the fountain."

"'"A task for poets," thought Shapur, as he began. "What more delightful
than to stand in the moonlighted garden and pluck the velvet leaves."
But after awhile the thorns tore his hands, and the rustle and hiss
underfoot betrayed the presence of serpents, and sleep weighed heavily
upon his eyelids. It grew monotonous, standing hour after hour,
stripping the rose-leaves from the calyxes until thousands and thousands
and thousands had been dropped into the great jars. The very sweetness
of the task began to cloy upon him.

"'When the stars had faded and the east begun to brighten, old Omar came
out. "Tis well," he said. "Now break thy fast, and then to slumber with
thee, to prepare for another sleepless night."

"'So long months went by, till it seemed to Shapur that the garden must
surely become exhausted. But for every rose he plucked, two bloomed in
its stead, and night after night he filled the jars.

"'Still he was learning no secrets, and he asked himself questions
sometimes. Was he not wasting his life? Would it not have been better to
have waited by the other fountain until some caravan passed by that
would carry him out of the solitude to the dwellings of men? What
opportunity was the desert offering him greater than kings' houses could
give?

"'And ever the thorns tore him more sorely, and the lonely silence of
the nights weighed upon him. Many a time he would have left his task had
not the shadowy form of his camel, kneeling outside by the fountain,
seemed to whisper to him through the starlight: "Patience, Shapur,
patience!"

"'Once, far in the distance, he saw the black outline of a distant
caravan passing along the horizon where day was beginning to break. He
did no more work until it had passed from sight. Gazing after it with a
fierce longing to follow, he pictured the scenes it was moving
toward,--the gilded minarets of the mosques, the deep-toned ringing of
bells, the cries of the populace, and all the life and stir of the
market-place. When the shadowy procession had passed, the great silence
of the desert smote him like a pain.

"'Again looking out, he saw his faithful camel, and again it seemed to
whisper: "Patience, Shapur, patience! So thou, too, shalt fare forth to
the City of thy Desire."

"'One day in the waning of summer, Omar called him into a room in which
he had never been before. "Now at last," said he, "hast thou proven
thyself worthy to be the sharer of my secrets. Come! I will show thee!
Thus are the roses distilled, and thus is gathered up the precious oil
floating on the tops of the vessels.

"'"Seest thou this tiny vial? It weighs but the weight of one rupee,
but it took the sweetness of two hundred thousand roses to make the
attar it contains, and so costly is it that only princes may purchase.
It is worth more than thy entire load of salt that was washed away at
the fountain."

"'Shapur worked diligently at the new task till there came a day when
Omar said to him: "Well done, Shapur! Behold the gift of the desert, its
reward for thy patient service in its solitude!"

"'He placed in Shapur's hands a crystal vase, sealed with a seal and
filled with the precious attar.

"'"Wherever thou goest this sweetness will open for thee a way and win
for thee a welcome. Thou camest into the desert a vender of salt. Thou
shalt go forth an apostle of my alchemy. Wherever thou seest a heart
bowed down in some Desert of Waiting, thou shalt whisper to it:
'Patience! Here, if thou wilt, in these arid sands, thou mayst find thy
Garden of Omar, and from these daily tasks that prick thee sorest distil
some precious attar to sweeten all life!' So, like the bee that led thee
to my teaching, shalt thou lead others to hope."

"'Then Shapur went forth with the crystal vase, and his camel, healed in
the long time of waiting, bore him swiftly across the sands to the City
of his Desire. The Golden Gate, that would not have opened to the
vender of salt, swung wide for the Apostle of Omar.

"'Princes brought their pearls to exchange for his attar, and everywhere
he went its sweetness opened for him a way and won for him a welcome.
Wherever he saw a heart bowed down in some Desert of Waiting, he
whispered Omar's words and tarried to teach Omar's alchemy, that from
the commonest experiences of life may be distilled its greatest
blessings.

"'At his death, in order that men might not forget, he willed that his
tomb should be made at a place where all caravans passed. There, at the
crossing of the highways, he caused to be cut in stone that emblem of
patience, the camel, kneeling on the sand. And it bore this inscription,
which no one could fail to see, as he toiled past toward the City of his
Desire:

"'"Patience! Here, if thou wilt, on these arid sands, thou mayst find
thy Garden of Omar, and even from the daily tasks which prick thee
sorest mayst distil some precious attar to bless thee and thy fellow
man."

"'A thousand moons waxed and waned above it, then a thousand, thousand
more, and there arose a generation with restless hearts, who set their
faces ever westward, following the sun toward a greater City of Desire.
Strange seas they crossed, new coasts they came upon. Some were
satisfied with the fair valleys that tempted them to tarry, and built
them homes where the fruitful hills whispered stay. But always the sons
of Shapur pushed ahead, to pitch their tents a day's march nearer the
City of their Desire, nearer the Golden Gate, which opened every sunset
to let the royal Rajah of the Day pass through. Like a mirage that
vision lured them on, showing them a dream gate of opportunity, always
just ahead, yet ever out of reach.

"'As in the days of Shapur, so it was in the days of his sons. There
were those who fell by the way, and, losing all that made life dear,
cried out as the caravan passed on without them that Allah had forgotten
them; and they cursed the day that they were born, and laid hopeless
heads in the dust.

"'But Allah, the merciful, who from the beginning knew what Desert of
Waiting must lie between every son of Shapur and the City of his Desire,
had long before stretched out His hand over one of the mountains of His
continent. With earthquake shock it sank before Him. With countless
hammer-strokes of hail and rain-drops, and with gleaming rills he
chiselled it, till, as the centuries rolled by, it took the semblance
of that symbol of patience, a camel, kneeling there at the passing of
the ways. And to every heart bowed down and hopeless, it whispers daily
its message of cheer:

"'"_Patience! Thou camest into the desert a vender of salt, thou mayst
go forth an Alchemist, distilling from Life's tasks and sorrows such
precious attar in thy soul that its sweetness shall win for thee a
welcome wherever thou goest, and a royal entrance into the City of thy
Desire!_"

There was a long silence when Mr. Ellestad closed his note-book. Joyce
had turned her face away to watch the mountain while he read, so he
could not see whether the little tale pleased her or not. But suddenly a
tear splashed down on the paper in her lap, and she drew her hand
hastily across her eyes.

"You see, it seems as if you'd written that just for me," she said,
trying to laugh. "I think it's beautiful! If ever there was a heart
bowed down in a desert of waiting, I was that one when I came out here
this afternoon. But you have given a new meaning to the mountain, Mr.
Ellestad. How did you ever happen to think of it all?"

"A line from Sadi, one of the Persian poets, started me," he answered.
"'_Thy alchemist, Contentment be._' It grew out of that--that and my
own unrest and despondency."

"Look!" she cried, excitedly. "Do you see that? A bee! A bee buzzing
around my head, as it did Shapur's, and I can't drive him away!"

She flapped at it with her handkerchief. "Oh, there it goes now. I
wonder where it would lead us if we could follow it?"

"Probably to some neighbour's almond orchard," answered Mr. Ellestad.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Joyce. "I wish that there was a bee that I could
follow, and a real rose garden that I could find. It sounds so beautiful
and easy to say, 'Out of life's tasks and sorrows distil a precious
attar in thy soul,' and I'd like to, heaven knows, but, when it comes to
the point, how is one actually to go about it? If it were something that
I could do with my hands, I'd attempt it gladly, no matter how hard; but
doing the things in an allegory is like trying to take hold of the girl
in the mirror. You can see her plainly enough, but you can't touch her.
I used to feel that way about 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and think that if I
only had a real pack on my back, as Christian had, and could start off
on a real road, that I could be sure of what I was doing and the
progress I was making. I wish you'd tell me how to begin really living
up to your legend."

She spoke lightly, but there was a wistful glance in the laughing eyes
she turned toward him.

"You will first have to tell me what is the City of your Desire."

"Oh, to be an artist! It has always been that. To paint beautiful
pictures that will live long after I am gone, and will make people
better and happier. Then the work itself would be such a joy to me. Ever
since I have been old enough to realize that I will have to do something
to earn my own living, I've hoped that I could do it in that way. I have
had lessons from the best teachers we could get in Plainsville, and
Cousin Kate took me to the finest art galleries in Europe, and promised
to send me to the Art League in New York if I finished my high school
course creditably.

"But we had to come out here, and that ended everything. I can't help
saying, like Shapur, 'Why should I, with life beating strong in my
veins, and ambition like a burning simoom in my breast, be left here
helpless on the sands, where I can achieve nothing and make no progress
toward the City of my Desire?' It seems especially hard to have all this
precious time wasted, when I had counted so much on the money I
expected to earn,--enough to keep mamma comfortable when she grows old,
and to give the other children all sorts of advantages."

"And you do not believe that these 'arid sands' hold anything for you?"
said Mr. Ellestad.

Joyce shook her head.

"It takes something more than a trained hand and a disciplined eye to
make an artist," he answered, slowly. "Did you ever think that it is the
soul that has to be educated? That the greater the man behind the brush,
the greater the picture will be? Moses had his Midian before he was
worthy to be 'Lawgiver' to his people. Israel had forty years of
wilderness-wandering before it was fit for its Promised Land. David was
trained for kingship, not in courts, but on the hillsides with his
flocks.

"This is the secret of Omar's alchemy, to gather something from every
person we meet, from every experience life brings us, as Omar gathered
something from the heart of every rose, and out of the wide knowledge
thus gained, of human weaknesses and human needs, to distil in our own
hearts the precious oil of sympathy. That is the attar that will win for
us a welcome wherever we go,--sympathy. The quick insight and deep
understanding that help us to interpret people. And nobody fills his
crystal vase with it until he has been pricked by the world's
disappointments and bowed by its tasks. No masterpiece was ever painted
without it. A man may become a fine copyist, but he can never make
anything live on canvas until he has first lived deeply himself.

"Do not think your days wasted, little friend. Where could you learn
such lessons of patience and courage as here on this desert where so
many come to die? Where could you grow stronger than in the faithful
doing of your commonplace duties, here at home, where they all need you
and lean upon you?

"You do not realize that, if you could go on now to the City of your
Desire, the little you have to offer the world would put you in the rank
of a common vender of salt,--you could only follow in the train of
others. Is not waiting worth while, if it shall give you wares with
which to win a _royal_ entrance?"

"Oh, yes," answered Joyce, in a quick half-whisper, as the musical voice
paused. She was looking away toward the mountain with a rapt expression
on her uplifted face, as of one who sees visions. All the discontent
had vanished now. It was glowing with hope and purpose.

As Mr. Ellestad rose to go, she turned impulsively to thrust both
outstretched hands into his. "I can never thank you enough!" she
exclaimed. "Old Camelback will be a constant inspiration to me after
this instead of an emblem of hopelessness. _Please_ come in and read the
legend to mamma! And may I copy it sometime? Always now I shall think of
you as _Omar_. I shall call you that in my thoughts."

"Thank you, little friend," he said, softly, as they walked on toward
the house. "I have failed to accomplish many things in life that I had
hoped to do, but the thought that one discouraged soul has called me its
Omar makes me feel that I have not lived wholly in vain."




CHAPTER IX.

LLOYD'S DUCK HUNT


MEANWHILE, Lloyd and Jack, riding along toward the river, were enjoying
every moment of the sunny afternoon. Leaving the road at the White
Bachelor's, they followed the trail across a strip of desert.

[Illustration: "ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF THE SUNNY AFTERNOON"]

"Look out for gopher holes," called Jack. "If your horse should happen
to stumble into one, you'll be over his head before you can say 'scat.'
The little pests burrow everywhere."

As he spoke, his pony sprang to one side of the road with a suddenness
that nearly threw him from the saddle.

"You old goose!" he exclaimed. "That was nothing but a stick you shied
at. But it does look remarkably like a snake, doesn't it, Lloyd? That's
the way with all these ponies. They're always on the watch for rattlers,
and they'll shy at anything that looks the least bit like one."

"I didn't know that we'd find snakes out heah in this dry sand," said
Lloyd, in surprise.

"Yes, you'll find almost anything if you know just where to look,--a
whole menagerie. There are owls and snakes living together in the same
holes. Wait! It looks as if there might be a nest of them yonder. I'll
stir it up and see."

Leaving the trail, he rode up between a clump of sage-brush and
greasewood bushes, and threw his hat with all his force toward a hole
beneath them. A great, sleepy owl fluttered out, and sailed off with a
slow flapping of wings to the shelter of a stubby mesquit farther on.

"If we had time to dig into the nest, we'd find a snake in there,"
declared Jack, hanging down from his saddle, cowboy fashion, to pick up
his hat from the ground as he rode along. He could feel that Lloyd
admired the easy grace with which he did it, and that she was interested
in the strange things he had to tell about the desert. He was glad that
Phil was not along, for Phil, with his three years' advantage in age and
six inches in height, had a way of monopolizing attention that made Jack
appear very young and insignificant. He resented being made to feel like
a little boy when he was almost a year older than Lloyd and several
inches taller.

This was the first time he had been out alone with her, and the first
time that he had had a chance to show her that he could be entertaining
when he tried. Joyce and Mary and Phil had always had so much to say
that he had kept in the background.

The sun on Lloyd's hair made it gleam like sunshine itself, tucked up
under her jaunty little hunting-cap. The exercise was bringing a deeper
colour to the delicate wild-rose pink of her cheeks, and, as her eyes
smiled mischievously up at him whenever he told some tale that seemed
almost too big to believe, he decided that she was quite the nicest girl
he had ever known, except Joyce, and fully as agreeable to go hunting
with as any boy.

In that short trip he pointed out more strange things than she could
have seen in a whole afternoon in the streets of Paris or London. There
were the wonderful tiny trap-doors leading down into the silk-lined
tunnels of the cunning trap-door spiders; the hairy tarantulas; the
lizards; the burrows of the jack-rabbits; a trail made by the feet of
coyotes on their way to the White Bachelor's poultry-yard.

Then he pointed out a great cactus, sixty feet high, branched like a
candelabrum, and told her that the thorny trunk is like a great sealed
cup, full of the purest water, and that more than one traveller has
saved his life by boring into one of these desert wells when he was
perishing of thirst.

He told her how the Navajo Indians hunt the prairie-dogs, sticking up a
piece of mirror at the entrance to the mound, and lying in wait for the
little creature to come out. When it meets its own reflection, and sees
what it supposes to be a strange prairie-dog mocking it at its own front
door, it hurries out to fight, and the Indian pins it to the ground with
his arrow.

"Now, we'll have to go faster and make up for lost time," he exclaimed,
as they left the desert and turned into a road leading to Tempe, a
little town several miles away on Salt River. "There is an old ruin near
this road, where the Indians had a fort of some kind, that I'd like to
show you, but it's getting late, and we'd better hurry on to the river.
Let's gallop."

Lloyd had enjoyed many a swift ride, but none that had been so
exhilarating as this. The pure, fresh air blowing over the desert was
unlike any she had ever breathed before, it seemed so much purer and
more life-giving. It was a joy just to be alive on such a day and in
such a place. She felt that she knew some of the delight a bird must
feel winging its wild, free way through the trackless sky.

"I'd like to show you the town, too," Jack said, as they came to the
ford in the river leading over to Tempe. "The Mexican quarter is so
foreign-looking. But, as we're out to kill, we'll just keep on this
side, and follow the river up-stream a piece. Chris said that is where
he saw the ducks."

"Oh, I'd be the proudest thing that evah walked," she exclaimed, "if I
could only shoot one. A peacock couldn't hold a candle to me. It would
be worth the trip to Arizona just to do that, if I nevah did anothah
thing. How I could crow ovah Malcolm and Rob. Oh, Jack, you haven't any
idea how much I want to!"

"You shall have first pop at them," Jack answered. "You don't stand as
good a show with that little rifle as I do. You'll have to wait till you
get up just as close as possible."

Compared to the broad Ohio, which Lloyd was accustomed to seeing, Salt
River did not look much wider than a creek. She was in a quiver of
excitement when they turned the bend, and suddenly came in sight of the
beautiful water-fowl. The ponies, trained to stand perfectly still
wherever they were left, came to a sudden halt as the two excited
hunters sprang off, and crept stealthily along the bank.

"They'll see your white sweater," cautioned Jack. "Stoop down, and sneak
in behind the bushes."

"Then I'd bettah wait heah," returned Lloyd, "and you go on. I don't
believe I could hit a bahn doah now, I'm in such a shake. I must have
the 'buck ague.' If I bang into them, I'll just frighten them all away,
and you won't get a shot."

It was a temptation to Jack to do as she urged. This was the first sight
he had had of a duck since he had owned a gun, and the glint of the
iridescent feathers as the pretty creatures circled and dived in the
water made him tingle with the hunters' thrill.

"No," he exclaimed, as she insisted. "I brought you out here to shoot a
duck, and I don't want to take you back without one."

"Then I'll get down and wiggle along in the sand so they can't see me,"
said Lloyd, "just like 'Lawless Dick, the Half-breed Huntah.' Isn't this
fun!"

Crawling stealthily through the greasewood bushes, they crept inch by
inch nearer the water, fairly holding their breath with excitement.
Then Lloyd, rising to her knees, levelled her rifle to take aim. But her
hands shook, and, lowering it, she turned to Jack, whispering, "I'm suah
I'll miss, and spoil yoah chance. You shoot!"

"Aw, go on!" said Jack, roughly, forgetting, in his excitement, that he
was not speaking to a boy. "Don't be a goose! You can hit one if you
try!"

The commanding tone irritated Lloyd, but it seemed to steady her nerves,
for, flashing an indignant glance at him, she raised her rifle again,
and aimed it with deliberate coolness. _Bang!_

Jack, who knelt just beside her, prepared to fire the instant her shot
should send a whir of wings into the air, gave a wild whoop, and dropped
his gun.

"Hi!" he yelled. "You've hit it! See it floating over there! Wait a
minute. I'll get it for you!"

Crashing through the bushes he ran back to where Washington stood
waiting, and, swinging himself into the saddle, spurred him down the
bank. But the pony, who had never balked before with him at any ford,
seemed unwilling to go in.

"Hurry up, you old slow-poke!" called Jack. "Don't you see it's getting
away?"

He succeeded in urging him into the middle of the river, where the water
was almost up to the pony's body, but half-way across, the pony began to
plunge, and turned abruptly about. Then his hind feet seemed to give
way, and he went suddenly back on his haunches. At the same instant a
gruff voice called from the bank, "Come out of that, you little fool!
Don't you know there's quicksand there? Head your cayuse down the river!
Quick! Spur him up! Do you want to drown yourself?"

With a desperate plunge and a flounder or two, the pony freed himself,
and struggled back to safe ground, past the treacherous quicksand. As
Jack reached the bank he saw the White Bachelor peering at him from the
back of his white horse. He was evidently on the same mission, for he
wore a hunting-coat, as brown and weather-beaten as his swarthy face,
and carried an old gun on his shoulder.

"You'd have been sucked clean through to China, if you'd gone much
farther over," he said, crossly. "That's one of the worst places in the
river." Although his tone was savage, there was a pleasant gleam in his
eyes as he added: "Too bad you've lost your duck."

"Haven't lost it yet," said Jack, with a glance toward the dark object
floating rapidly down-stream. He kicked off his boots as he spoke.

"Oh, Jack, please don't go in after it!" begged Lloyd. "It isn't worth
such a risk." The word quicksand had frightened her, for she had heard
much of the dangerous spots in the rivers of this region.

"Bound to have it!" called Jack, "for you might not get another shot,
and I'm bound not to take you back home without one."

Striking out into the water regardless of his sweater and heavy corduroy
trousers, he paddled after it. By this time the entire flock was out of
sight, and when Jack emerged from the river dripping like a water-dog,
the man remarked, coolly: "Well, your hunt's up for this day, Buddy.
Better skip home and hang yourself up to dry, or you'll be having
pneumonia. Aren't you one of the kids that lives at that place where
they've got Ware's Wigwam painted on the post, and all sorts of
outlandish figgers on the tents?"

"Yes," acknowledged Jack, in a surly tone, resenting the name kid. Then,
remembering the fate that the man's warning had saved him from, he
added, gratefully: "It was lucky for me you yelled out quicksand just
when you did, for I was so bent on getting that duck that I'd have kept
on trying, no matter how the pony cut up. I thought he had taken a
stubborn spell, and wanted to balk at the water. I'm a thousand times
obliged. Here, Lloyd," he added. "Here's your trophy. We'll hang it on
your saddle."

He held out the fowl, a beautifully marked drake, but she drew back with
a little shrug of the shoulders.

"Oh, mercy, no!" she answered. "I wouldn't touch it for the world!"

"Haw! Haw!" roared the White Bachelor, who had watched her shrinking
gesture with a grin. "Afraid of a dead duck!"

"I'm not!" she declared, turning on him, indignantly. "I'm not afraid of
anything! But I just can't beah to touch dead things, especially with
fu'h or feathahs on them. Ugh! It neahly makes me sick to think about
it!"

"Well, if that don't beat the Dutch," said the man, in an amused tone,
after a long stare. She seemed to be a strange species of womankind,
with which he was unacquainted. Then, after another prolonged stare, he
swung his heels against the sides of his old white horse as a signal to
move, and ambled slowly off, talking to himself as he went.

"Meddlesome old thing!" muttered Lloyd, casting an indignant glance
after him. "It's none of his business. I don't see what he wanted to
poke in for."

"It was lucky for me that he did," answered Jack. "I never once thought
of quicksand. Queer that I didn't, too, when I've heard so much about it
ever since I came. It's all through Southern Arizona, and more than one
man has lost his life blundering into it."

Lloyd grew serious as she realized the danger he had escaped. "It was
mighty brave of you to go back into the rivah aftah you came so neah
being drowned, and just fo' my pleasuah--just because you knew I wanted
that duck. I'll remembah it always of you, Jack."

"Oh, that's nothing," he answered, carelessly, blushing to the roots of
his wet hair. "When I once start out to get a thing, I hate to be
beaten. I'd have swam all the way to Jericho rather than let it get
away. But I hope you won't always think of me as sloshing around in the
water, though I suppose you can't help that, for you know the first
time you saw me I was over my elbows in a washtub."

"That's so," laughed Lloyd. "But you weren't quite as wet then as you
are now. It's a pity you can't wring yourself as dry as you did those
towels."

While Jack was tugging into his boots, she went back to the bushes for
the gun he had dropped. Then she stood drawing out the loads while he
tied the duck to his saddle.

"Poah thing," said Lloyd. "It looked so beautiful swimming around in the
watah a few minutes ago. Now it's mate will be so lonesome. Papa Jack
says wild ducks nevah mate again. Of co'se," she went on, slowly, "I'm
proud to think that I hit it, but now that it's dead and I took it's
life, I feel like a murdahah. Jack, I'm nevah going to kill anothah one
as long as I live."

"But it isn't as if you'd done it just for sport," protested Jack. "They
were meant for food. Wait till Joyce serves it for dinner, and you'll
change your mind."

"No," she said, resolutely, "I'll keep my rifle for rattlesnakes and
coyotes, in case I see any, and for tah'get practice, but I'm not going
to do any moah killing of this kind. I'm glad that I got this one,
though," she added, as she swung herself into the saddle. "I'll send
grandfathah a feathah, and one to Mom Beck. They'll both be so proud.
And I'll send one to Malcolm and one to Rob, and they'll both be so
envious, to think that I got ahead of them."

"May I have one?" asked Jack, "just to keep to remember my first duck
hunt?"

"Yes, of co'se!" cried Lloyd. "I wouldn't have had any myself, if it
hadn't been for you. You have given me one of the greatest pleasuahs I
evah had. This has been a lovely aftahnoon."

"Then I can count that quite a 'feather in my cap,' can't I," said Jack,
laughingly. Reaching down, he selected the prettiest feather he could
find, and thrust the long quill through his hatband. Lloyd glanced
quickly at him. She would have expected such a complimentary speech from
Malcolm or Phil, but coming from the quiet, matter-of-fact Jack, such a
graceful bit of gallantry was a surprise.

"You can save the down for a sofa-cushion, you know," he added. "Even if
you have sworn off shooting any more yourself, you can levy on all that
Phil and I get, to finish it."

"Oh, thank you," she called back over her shoulder. Her pony, finding
that he was turned homeward, was setting off at his best gait. Slapping
his hat firmly on his head, Jack hurried to overtake her, and the two
raced along neck to neck.

"This is how they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix," he called.
"I recited it once at school!

    "'Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace,--
     Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place.'"

"Isn't it glorious?" called back Lloyd. Her cheeks dimpled with
pleasure, and were growing red as a sun-ripened peach from the exercise.
Her hat-pin began slipping out. Snatching at the little cap, she caught
it just in time to save it from sailing off into the desert, but her
hair came slipping down over her shoulders to her waist, in soft,
shining waves. Jack thought that he had never seen anything prettier
than the little golden ripples in it, as it floated back behind her in
the sunshine.

"You look like Goldilocks when the three bears chased her," he laughed.
"Don't try to put it up again. That's squaw fashion. You ought to wear
it that way all the time you're out here, if you want to be in style."

Across the road from the Wigwam, Mary and Norman were waiting for the
return of the hunters. They had rolled a barrel from the back yard over
to the edge of the desert, where they could watch the road, and, turning
it on its side, had laid a plank across it, left from flooring the
tents. On this they were seesawing up and down, taking turns at
occupying the end which faced in the direction Jack and Lloyd would
come. Mary happened to have the coveted seat when they came in sight.

"Gay go up, and gay go down," she chanted, as the seesaw rose and fell
with delightful springiness. "All the way to London town." Norman was
high in the air when she began again, "Gay go up," but it was anything
but gay go down for Norman. With an unexpectedness that he was wholly
unprepared for, Mary's chant ended with a whoop of "Here they come!" She
sprang off, and ran to meet them, regardless of the other end of the
plank. It fell with such a thud that Norman felt that his spinal column
must certainly have become unjointed in the jolt, and his little white
teeth shut down violently on his little red tongue.

His cries and Mary's shout of "Here they come" brought Joyce to the
door. Mr. Ellestad was just leaving. She had prevailed upon him to read
the legend to her mother, and then he had stayed on till sundown,
discussing the different things that a girl might do on the desert to
earn money. The story of Shapur had inspired her with a hope that made
all things possible. She was glad that Lloyd's triumph gave her an
outlet for her enthusiasm.

As soon as Mr. Ellestad left, she hustled Jack off to his mother's tent
to change his wet clothes, and then started to build the fire for
supper. "It's a pity that it's too dark for me to take a snap shot of
you with that duck," she said. "But the first one that Jack or Phil
kills we'll have a picture of it. It will do just as well. Then if I
were you I'd make some little blotting-pads of white blotting-paper, put
a blue-print on the top sheet, of you and your rifle and the duck, and
at the top fasten one of the feathers made into a pen. You can split the
end of the quill, you know, just as they used to make the old-fashioned
goose-quill pens."

"So I can!" cried Lloyd. "I'm so glad you thought of it. Oh, Joyce, I've
had the best time this aftahnoon! I had no idea the desert could be so
interesting!"

"Nor I, either," began Joyce. "I'll tell you about it some other time,"
she added, as Holland burst in, demanding to see the duck that Lloyd had
killed. Mary had run down the road to meet him with the news, but he
stoutly declined to believe that a girl could have accomplished such a
feat, until he had the proof of it in his hands. Then to Lloyd's
delight he claimed the honour of picking it. She felt that she would
rather throw it away than go through the ordeal herself, yet she could
not impose such a task on any one else at such a late hour on a busy
Saturday.

"Oh, if you only will," she cried, "I'll let you use my rifle all next
Saturday. I didn't see how I could possibly touch it! That down is so
thick undah the long outside feathahs, that it would be as bad as
picking a--a _cat_!"

Holland ripped out a handful with a look of fine scorn. "Well, if you
aren't the funniest!" he exclaimed. "Girls are awful finicky," he
confided to Mary later. "I'm glad that I'm not one."




CHAPTER X.

THE SCHOOL OF THE BEES


WITH her slipper toes caught in the meshes of the hammock to keep her
from falling out, and with her head hanging over nearly to the ground,
Mary lay watching something beneath her, with breathless interest.

"What is it, Mary?" called Phil, as he came up and threw himself down on
the grass beside her, in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree.

She pointed to a saucer of sugar and water just below her, on the edge
of which several bees had alighted. "I put it there," she said, in a low
tone, as if afraid of disturbing the bees. "Mr. Ellestad has been
telling us how smart they are, and I wanted to watch them do some of
their strange things myself. He wants Joyce to raise bees instead of
chickens or squabs or any of the things they were talking about doing.
He came up after dinner with some books, and told us so much about them,
that I learned more than I would in a whole week in school. Joyce and
Lloyd were so interested that, as soon as he left, they rode right over
to Mr. Shaw's bee ranch to find out how much a hive costs, and all about
it."

"Have they been gone long?" asked Phil, more interested in the girls
than in the bees. Finding that they had been away more than an hour, and
that it was almost time for their return, he settled himself to wait,
feigning an interest almost as great as Mary's in the saucer of sugar
and water. There was something comical to him always in Mary's serious
moods, and the grave expression of the little round face, as it hung
over the edge of the hammock, promised enough amusement to make the time
pass agreeably.

"When one bee gets all he can carry, he goes and tells the others,"
explained Mary. "I've had six, so far. I suppose you know about Huber,"
she asked, looking up eagerly. "I didn't till Mr. Ellestad read us a lot
about him out of one of the books he brought."

"I've heard of him," answered Phil, smiling, as he saw how much she
wanted the pleasure of repeating her newly gained knowledge. "Suppose
you tell me."

"Well, he was born in Switzerland--in Geneva, and when Lloyd found that
out, she was ready to read anything he had written, or to study anything
he was interested in. She just loves Geneva. That was where she met the
major who gave her Hero, her Red Cross war-dog, you know, and that is
where he saved her life, by stopping a runaway horse.

"Well, Huber went blind when he was just a boy, and he would have had a
terribly lonesome time if it hadn't been for the bees. He began to study
them, and they were so interesting that he went on studying them his
whole life. He had somebody to help him, of course, who watched the
hives, and told him what went on inside, and he found out more about
them than anybody had ever done before, and wrote books about them. It
is two hundred years since then, and a whole library has been written
about bees since then, but his books are still read, and considered
among the best.

"Holland said, Pooh! the bees couldn't teach _him_ anything. He'd just
as soon go to a school of grasshoppers, and that I'd be a goose if I
spent my time watching 'em eat sugar and water out of a dish. He was
going off fishing with George Lee. He wouldn't wait to hear what Mr.
Ellestad had to say. But all the fish in the canal wouldn't do me as
much good as one thing I learned from the bees."

"What was that?" asked Phil, lazily, stretching himself out full length
on the grass, and pulling his hat over his eyes.

"Sometimes it happens that something gets into the hives that don't
belong there; like a slug. Once a mouse got in one, and it told in the
book about a child dropping a snail in one. Well, the bees can sting
such things to death, but they're not strong enough to drag them out
after they're dead, and if the dead bodies stayed in the hives they'd
spoil everything after awhile. So the bees just cover them all over with
wax, make an air-tight cell, and seal them up in it. Isn't that smart?
Then they just leave it there and go off about their business, and
forget about it. Mr. Ellestad said that's what people ought to do with
their troubles that can't be cured, but have to be endured. They ought
to seal them up tight, and stop talking and fretting about them--keep
them away from the air, he said, seal them up so they won't poison their
whole life. That set me to thinking about the trouble that is poisoning
my happiness, and I made up my mind I'd pretend it was just a snail that
had crept into my hive. I can't change it, I can't drag it out, but I
won't let it spoil all my honey."

"Well, bless my soul!" exclaimed Phil, sitting up very straight, and
looking at her with an interest that was unfeigned this time. "What
trouble can a child like you have, that is so bad as all that?"

"Won't you ever tell?" said Mary, "and won't you ever laugh at me?" She
was eager to unburden her soul, but afraid of appearing ridiculous in
the eyes of her hero. "Well, it's being so fat! I've always wanted to be
tall and slender and willowy, like the girls in books. I always play I
am, when Patty and I go off by ourselves at recess. I have such good
times then, but when I come back the boys call me Pudding, and Mother
Bunch and _Gordo_. I think that is Spanish for _fat_. My face is just as
round as a full moon, and my waist--well, Holland calls me _Chautauqua_,
and that's Indian for bag-tied-in-the-middle. There isn't a girl in
school that has such legs as mine. I can barely reach around them with
both hands."

She pulled her short gingham skirt farther over her knees as she spoke,
and stole a side glance at Phil to see if he were taking as serious a
view of her troubles as the situation demanded. He was staring straight
ahead of him with a very grave face, for he had to draw it into a frown
to keep from laughing outright.

"I'd give anything to be like Lloyd," she continued. "She's so straight
and graceful, and she holds her head like a real princess. But she grew
up that way, I suppose, and never did have a time of being dumpy like
me. They used to call her 'airy, fairy Lillian' when she was little,
because she was so light on her feet."

"They might well call her that now," remarked Phil, looking toward the
road down which she was to appear. Mary, about to plunge into deeper
confidences, saw the glance, and saw that he had shifted his position in
order to watch for the coming of the girls. She felt that he was not as
interested as she had supposed. Maybe he wouldn't care to hear how she
stood every day in the tent before the mirror, to hold her shoulders as
Lloyd did, or throw back her head in the same spirited way. Maybe he
wouldn't understand. Maybe he would think her vain and silly and a
copy-cat, as Holland called her. Lloyd would not have rattled on the way
she had been doing. Oh, why had she been born with such a runaway
tongue!

Covered with confusion, she sat so long without speaking that Phil
glanced at her, wondering at the unusual silence. To his surprise there
was an expression of real distress on the plump little face, and the
gray eyes were winking hard to keep back the tears.

"So that is the trouble, is it?" he said, kindly, not knowing what was
in her thought. "Well, it's a trouble you'll probably outgrow. I used to
go to school with a girl that was nicknamed Jumbo, because she weighed
so much, and she grew up to be as tall and slim as a rail; so you see
there is hope for you. In the meantime, you are a very sensible little
girl to take the lesson of the bees to heart. Just seal up your trouble,
and don't bother your head about it, and be your own cheerful, happy
little self. People can't help loving you when you are that way, and
they don't want you to be one mite different."

Phil felt like a grandfather as he gave this bit of advice. He did not
see the look of supreme happiness which crossed Mary's face, for at that
moment the girls came riding up to the house, and he sprang up to meet
them.

"I'll unsaddle the ponies," he said, taking the bridles as the girls
slid to the ground, and starting toward the pasture. By the time he
returned, Mary had carried some chairs out to the hammock, and Joyce
had brought a pitcher of lemonade.

"Come, drink to the success of my new undertaking," she called. "It's
all so far off in the future that mamma says I'm counting my chickens
before they are hatched, but--I'm going into the bee business, Phil. Mr.
Shaw will let me have a hive of gold-banded Italian bees for eight
dollars. I don't know when I'll ever earn that much money, but I'll do
it some day. Then that hive will swarm, and the new swarms will swarm,
and with the honey they make I'll buy more hives. There is such a long
honey-making time every year in this land of flowers, that I'll be
owning a ranch as big as Mr. Shaw's some day, see if I don't! I always
wanted a garden like Grandmother Ware's, with a sun-dial and a beehive
in it, just for the artistic effect, but I never dreamed of making a
fortune out of it."

"And I intend to get some hives as soon as I go back to Locust," said
Lloyd. "It will be the easiest way in the world to raise money for ou'
Ordah of Hildegarde. That's the name of the club I belong to," she
explained to Phil. "One of its objects is to raise money for the poah
girls in the mountain schools. We get so tiahed of the evahlasting
embroidery and fancy work, and, as Mr. Ellestad says, this is so
interesting, and one can learn so much from the bees."

"That's what Mary was telling me," said Phil, gravely. "But I must
confess I never got much out of them. I investigated them once when I
was a small boy--stirred up the hive with a stick, and by the time I was
rescued I was pretty well puffed up. Not with a sense of my wisdom,
however. They stung me nearly to death. So I've rather shrunk from
having any more dealings with them."

"You can't deny that they gave you a good lesson in minding your own
business," laughed Lloyd.

"Well, I don't care to have so many teachers after me, all teaching me
the same thing. I prefer variety in my instructors."

"They don't all teach the same thing," cried Joyce, enthusiastically. "I
had no idea how the work was divided up until I began to study them.
People have watched them through glass hives, you know, with black
shutters. They have nurses to tend the nymphs and larvae, and ladies of
honour, who wait on the queen, and never let her out of their sight. And
isn't it odd, they are exactly like human beings in one thing, they
never turn their back on the queen. Then there are the house bees, who
both air and heat the hives by fanning their wings, and sometimes they
help to evaporate the honey in the same way, when there is more water in
the flower nectar than usual. There are architects, masons, waxworkers,
and sculptors, and the foragers, who go out to the flowers for the
pollen and nectar. Some are chemists, who let a drop of formic acid fall
from the end of their stings to preserve the honey, and some are capsule
makers, who seal down the cells when the honey is ripe. Besides all
these are the sweepers, who spend their time sweeping the tiny streets,
and the bearers, who remove the corpses, and the amazons of the guard,
who watch by the threshold night and day, and seem to require some kind
of a countersign of all who pass, just like real soldiers. Some are
artists, too, as far as knowing colours is concerned. They get red
pollen from the mignonette, and yellow pollen from the lilies, and they
never mix them. They always store them in separate cells in the
storerooms."

"Whew!" whistled Phil, beginning to fan himself with his hat as Joyce
paused. "Anything more? It takes a girl with a fad to deluge a fellow
with facts."

"Tell him about the drones," said Lloyd, meaningly. She resented being
laughed at. "_They_ don't like the school of the bees eithah. If
Aristotle and Cato and Pliny and those old philosophahs could spend time
studying them, _you_ needn't tuh'n up yoah nose at them!"

Lloyd turned away indignantly, but she looked so pretty with her eyes
flashing, and the colour coming up in her cheeks, that Phil was tempted
to keep on teasing them about their fad, as he called it. His antagonism
to it was all assumed at first, but he began to feel a real resentment
as the days wore on. It interfered too often with his plans. Several
times he had walked up to the ranch to find Mr. Ellestad there ahead of
him with a new book on bee culture, or an interesting account of some
new experiment, or some ride was spoiled because, when he called, the
girls had gone to Shaw's ranch to spend the afternoon.

Joyce and Lloyd purposely pointed all their morals, and illustrated all
their remarks whenever they could, by items learned at the School of the
Bees, until Phil groaned aloud whenever the little honey-makers were
mentioned.

"If you had been Shapur you nevah would have followed that bee to the
Rose Garden of Omah, would you?" asked Lloyd, one day when they had
been discussing the legend of Camelback.

"No," answered Phil, "nothing could tempt me to follow one of those
irritating little creatures."

"Not even to reach the City of yoah Desiah?"

"My City of Desire would have been right in that oasis, probably, if I
had been Shapur. The story said, 'Water there was for him to drink, and
the fruit of the date-palm.' He had everything to make him comfortable,
so what was the use of going around with an ambition like a burning
simoom in his breast."

"I don't believe that you have a bit of ambition," said Lloyd, in a
disapproving tone that nettled Phil. "Have you?"

"I can't say that it keeps me awake of nights," laughed Phil. "And I
can't see that anybody is any happier or more comfortable for being all
torn up over some impossible thing he is for ever reaching after, and
never can get hold of."

"Neahly everybody I know is like Shapur," said Lloyd, musingly. "Joyce
is wild to be an artist, and Betty to write books, and Holland to go
into the navy, and Jack to be at the head of the mines. Papa has
promised him a position in the mine office as soon as he learns Spanish,
and he is pegging away at it every spare minute. He says Jack will make
a splendid man, for it is his great ambition to be just like his fathah,
who was so steady-going and reliable and honahable in all he undahtook,
that he had the respect of everybody. Papa says Jack will make just the
kind of man that is needed out heah to build up this new country, and he
expects great things of him some day. He says that a boy who is so
faithful in small things is bound to be faithful to great ones of public
trust."

"What is your City of Desire?" asked Phil, who did not relish the turn
the conversation had taken. He liked Jack, but he didn't want Lloyd to
sing his praises so enthusiastically.

"Oh, I'm only a girl without any especial talent," answered Lloyd, "so I
can't expect to amount to as much as Joyce and Betty. But I want to live
up to our club motto, and to leave a Road of the Loving Heart behind me
in everybody's memory, and to be just as much like mothah and my
beautiful Grandmothah Amanthis as I can. A home-makah, grandfathah says,
is moah needed in the world than an artist or an authah. He consoles me
that way sometimes, when I feel bad because I can't do the things I'd
like to. But it is about as hard to live up to his ideal of a
home-makah, as to reach any othah City of Desiah. He expects so much of
me."

"But what would your ambition be if you were a boy?" asked Phil, lazily
leaning back in the hammock to watch her.

"If I were a boy," she repeated. A light leaped up into her face, and
unconsciously her head took its high, princesslike pose. "If I were a
boy, and could go out into the world and do all sawts of fine things, I
wouldn't be content to sit down beside the well and the palm-tree. I'd
want something to do that was hard and brave, and that would try my
mettle. I'd want to fight my way through all sawts of dangahs and
difficulties. I couldn't beah to be nothing but a drone, and not have
any paht in the world's hive-making and honey-making."

"Look here," said Phil, his face flushing, "you girls are associating
with bees entirely too much. You're learning to sting."




CHAPTER XI.

THE NEW BOARDER AT LEE'S RANCH


Mary could hardly wait to tell the news to Phil and Mrs. Lee. She ran
nearly all the way from the Wigwam to the ranch, her hat in her hand,
and the lid of her lunch-basket flapping.

Long before she came within calling distance, she saw Phil mount his
horse out by the pasture bars, and ride slowly along the driveway which
led past the tents to the public road. With the hope of intercepting
him, she dashed on still more wildly, but her shoe-strings tripped her,
and she was obliged to stop to tie them. Glancing up as she jerked them
into hard knots, she breathed a sigh of relief, for he had drawn rein to
speak to Mr. Ellestad and the new boarder, who were sitting in the sun
near the bamboo-arbour. Then, just as he was about to start on again,
Mrs. Lee came singing out to the tents with an armful of clean towels,
and he called to her some question, which brought her, laughing, to join
the group.

Thankful for these two delays, Mary went dashing on toward them so
breathlessly that Phil gave a whistle of surprise as she turned in at
the ranch.

"What's the matter, Mary?" he called. "Indians after you again?"

"No," she panted, throwing herself down on the dry Bermuda grass, and
wiping her flushed face on her sleeve. "I'm on my way to school. I just
stopped by with a message, and I thought you'd like to hear the news."

"Well, that depends," began Phil, teasingly. "We hear so little out on
this lonely desert, that our systems may not be able to stand the shock
of anything exciting. If it's good news, maybe we can bear it, if you
break it to us gently. If it's bad, you'd better not run any risks.
'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise,' you know."

"Oh, come now, Tremont, that's too bad," laughed Mr. Ellestad. "Don't
head her off that way when she's in such a hurry to tell it."

"Then go on, Mary," said Phil, gravely. "Mr. Ellestad's curiosity is
greater than his caution, and Mr. Armond hasn't been in the desert long
enough to be affected by its dearth of news, so anything sudden can't
hurt him. Go on."

Mary stole a glance at the new boarder. The long, slender fingers,
smoothing his closely clipped, pointed beard, hid the half-smile that
lurked around his mouth. He was leaning back in his camp-chair,
apparently so little interested in his surroundings, that Mary felt that
his presence need not be taken into account any more than the
bamboo-arbour's.

"Well," she said, as if announcing something of national importance,
"_Joyce has an order_."

"An order," repeated Phil, "what under the canopy is that? Is it
catching?"

"Don't pay any attention to him, Mary," Mr. Ellestad hastened to say,
seeing a little distressed pucker between her eyes. "Phil is a trifle
slow to understand, but he wants to hear just as much as we do."

"Well, it's an order to paint some cards," explained Mary, speaking very
slowly and distinctly in her effort to make the matter clear to him.
"You know the Links, back in Plainsville, Mrs. Lee. You've heard me talk
about Grace Link ever so many times. Her cousin Cecelia is to be married
soon, and her bridesmaids are all to be girls that she studied music
with at the Boston Conservatory. So her Aunt Sue, that's Mrs. Link, is
going to give her a bridal musicale. It's to be the finest entertainment
that ever was in Plainsville, and they want Joyce to decorate the
souvenir programmes. Once she painted some place cards for a Valentine
dinner that Mrs. Link gave. She did that for nothing, but Mrs. Link has
sent her ten dollars in advance for making only thirty programmes.
That's thirty cents apiece.

"They're to have Cupids and garlands of roses and strings of hearts on
'em, no two alike, and bars of music from the wedding-marches and bridal
chorus. Joyce is the happiest thing! She's nearly wild over it, she's so
pleased. She's going to buy a hive of bees with the money."

Phil groaned, but Mary paid no attention to the interruption.

"The letter and the package of blank cards for the programmes came this
morning while she was sweeping, and she just left the dirt and the broom
right in the middle of the floor, and sat down on the door-step and
began sketching little designs on the back of the envelope, as they
popped into her head. Lloyd and Jack and mamma are going to do all the
cooking and housework and everything, so Joyce can spend all her time on
the cards. They want them right away. Isn't that splendid?"

"Whoop-la!" exclaimed Phil, as Mary stopped, out of breath. "Fortune has
at last changed in your favour. I'll ride straight up to the Wigwam to
congratulate her."

"Oh, I almost forgot what I stopped by for," exclaimed Mary. "Lloyd told
me to tell you that you needn't come to-day to take her riding, for
she'll be too busy helping Joyce to go."

Phil scowled. "The turn in _my_ fortune isn't so favourable, it seems.
Well, if I'm not wanted at the Wigwam I'll go to town to-day. There's
always something doing in Phoenix. Climb up behind me, Mary, and I'll
give you a lift as far as the schoolhouse."

As they galloped gaily down the road, Mrs. Lee looked after them with a
troubled expression in her eyes. "There's too much doing in Phoenix for
a nice boy like that," she thought. "I wish he wouldn't go so often. I
must tell him the experience some of my other boys have had when they
went in with idle hands and full purses like his."

Her boarders were always her boys to Mrs. Lee, and she watched over them
with motherly interest, not only nursing them in illness and cheering
them in homesickness, but many a time whispering a warning against the
temptations which beset all exiles from home who have nothing to do but
kill time. Now with the hope of interesting the new boarder in
something beside himself, she dropped down into the rustic seat near
him, hanging the towels over the arm of it while she talked.

"You must make the acquaintance of the Wares, Mr. Armond," she began.
"They stayed at the ranch three weeks, and this little Mary and her
brothers kept things humming, the whole time."

"They'd give me nervous prostration in half a day, if they're all like
that little chatterbox," he answered, listlessly.

"Not Joyce," interrupted Mr. Ellestad. "She's the most interesting child
of her age I ever knew, and being an artist yourself you couldn't fail
to be interested in her unbounded ambition. She really has talent, I
think. For a girl of fifteen her clever little water-colours and her
pen-and-ink work show unusual promise."

"Then I'm sorry for her," said Mr. Armond. "If she has ambition and
thinks she has talent, life will be twice as hard for her, always a
struggle, always an unsatisfied groping after something she can never
reach."

"But I believe that she will reach what she wants, some day," was the
reply. "She has youth and health and unbounded hope. The other day I
quoted an old Norwegian proverb, '_He waits not long who waits for a
feast_.' She wrote it on the kitchen door, saying, 'I'll have to wait
till I can earn enough money to buy one hive of bees, and then I'll wait
for that hive to swarm and make another, and for the two to grow into a
hundred, and that into two hundred maybe, before I'll have enough to go
away and study. It'll be years and years before I reach the mark I've
set for myself, but when I'm really an artist, doing the things I've
dreamed of doing, that will be a feast worth any amount of waiting.' Now
in less than a week she has found her way to the first step, the first
hive of bees, and I'm truly glad for her."

"But the happier such beginnings, the more tragic the end, oftentimes,"
Mr. Armond answered. "I've known such cases,--scores of them, when I was
an art student myself in Paris. Girls and young fellows who thought they
were budding geniuses. Who left home and country and everything else for
art's sake. They lived in garrets, and slaved and struggled and starved
on for years, only to find in the end that they were not geniuses, only
to face failure. I never encourage beginners any more. For what is more
cruel than to say to some hungry soul, 'Go on, wait, you'll reach the
feast, your longing shall be satisfied,' when you know full well that
in only one case in ten thousand, perhaps, can there be a feast for one
of them. That when they stretch out their hands for bread there will be
only a stone."

"But you reached it yourself, Armond, you know you did," answered Mr.
Ellestad, who had known the new boarder well in his younger days. "To
have had pictures hung in the Salon and Academy, to be recognized as a
success in both hemispheres, isn't that enough of a feast to satisfy
most men?"

The face turned to him in reply wore the look of one who has fought the
bitterest of fights and fallen vanquished.

"No. To have a sweet snatched away just as it is placed to one's lips is
worse than never to have tasted it. What good does it do me now? Look at
me, a hopeless invalid, doomed to a year or two of unendurable idleness.
How much easier it would be for me now to fold my hands and wait, if I
had no baffled ambitions to torment me hourly, no higher desires in life
than Chris there."

He pointed to the swarthy Mexican, digging a ditch across the alfalfa
pasture. "No," he repeated. "I'd never encourage any one, now, to start
on such an unsatisfactory quest."

"I'm sorry," said Mr. Ellestad. "When I heard that you were coming, I
hoped that you would take an interest in Joyce Ware. You could be the
greatest inspiration and help to her, if you only would."

"There she is now," exclaimed Mrs. Lee, who sat facing the road. "It
does me good to see any one swing along as she does, with so much energy
and purpose in every movement."

Mr. Armond turned his head slightly for a view of the girlish figure
moving rapidly toward them.

"Don't tell her that I am an artist, Ellestad," he said, hurriedly, as
she drew near, "or that I've ever lived in the Latin Quarter or--or
anything like that. I know how schoolgirls gush over such things, and
I'm in no mood for callow enthusiasms."

Joyce's errand was to borrow some music, the wedding-marches, if Mrs.
Lee had them, from Lohengrin and Tannhauser. She remembered seeing
several old music-books on the organ in the adobe parlour, and she
thought maybe the selections she wanted might be in them.

Mr. Armond sat listening to the conversation with as little interest,
apparently, as he had done to Mary's. After acknowledging his
introduction to Joyce by a grave bow, he leaned back in his chair, and
seemed to withdraw himself from notice.

At first glance Joyce had been a trifle embarrassed by the presence of
this distinguished-looking stranger. Something about him--the cut of
the short, pointed beard, the nervous movement of his long, sensitive
fingers, the eyes that seemed to see so much and so deeply in their
brief glances, recalled some memory, vague and disturbing. She tried to
remember where it was she had seen some man who looked like this one.

"Is it very necessary that you should have the wedding-marches?" asked
Mrs. Lee, coming back from a fruitless search in the parlour. "Wouldn't
a few bars from any other music do just as well? So long as you have
some notes, I should think any other march would carry out the idea just
as well."

"No," said Joyce. "All the guests will be musicians. They'd see at a
glance if it wasn't appropriate, and ordinary music would not mean
anything in such a place."

"I know where you can get what you want," said Mrs. Lee, "but you'd have
to go to Phoenix for it. I have a friend there who is a music-teacher
and an organist. I'll give you a note to her, if you care enough to go
six miles."

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Lee," cried Joyce. "I'll be glad to take it, if it
isn't too much trouble for you to write it. I'd go twenty miles rather
than not have the right notes on the programmes."

Mr. Armond darted a quick glance at her through half-closed eyelids.
Evidently she was more in earnest than he had supposed.

As Mrs. Lee went to the house to write the note, Mr. Ellestad said,
smilingly, "Mary told us that this piece of good fortune will bring you
your first hive of bees, give you your first step toward the City of
your Desire. It seems appropriate that this bridal musicale should give
you your hives. Did you ever hear that the bow of the Hindu love-god is
supposed to be strung with wild bees?"

"No," she answered, slowly, "but it's a pretty idea, isn't it?" Then her
face lighted up so brightly that Mr. Armond looked at her with awakening
interest.

"Oh, I'm so glad you told me that! It suggests such a pretty design.
See! I can make one card like this." Taking a pencil from her hair,
where she had thrust it when she started on her errand, and catching up
the old music-book Mrs. Lee had brought out, she began sketching rapidly
on a fly-leaf.

"I'll have a little Cupid in this corner, his bow strung with tiny bees,
shooting across this staff of music, suspended from two hearts. And
instead of notes I'll make bees, flying up and down between the lines.
Won't that be fine?"

Mr. Armond nodded favourably when the sketch was passed to him. "Very
good," he said, looking at it critically. Slipping a pencil from his
pocket, he held it an instant over the little fat Cupid, as if to make
some correction or suggestion, but apparently changing his mind, he
passed the sketch back to Joyce without a word.

Again she was baffled by that vague half-memory. The gesture with which
he had taken the pencil from his pocket and replaced it seemed familiar.
The critical turn of his head, as he looked at the sketch, was certainly
like some one's she knew. She liked him in spite of his indifference.
Something in his refined, melancholy face made her feel sorry for him;
sorrier than she had been for any of the other people at the ranch. He
looked white and ill, and the spells of coughing that seized him now and
then seemed to leave him exhausted.

When Mrs. Lee came out with the note, Joyce rose to go. She had learned
in the short conversation with Mr. Ellestad that this stranger was an
old acquaintance of his, so she said, hospitably, "We are your nearest
neighbours, Mr. Armond. I know from experience how monotonous the desert
is till one gets used to it. Whenever you feel in need of a change
we'll be glad to see you at the Wigwam. It's always lively there, now."

He thanked her gravely, and Mr. Ellestad added, with a laugh, "He is
just at the point now where Shapur was when the caravan went on without
him. He doesn't think that these arid sands can hold anything worth
while."

"Oh, I know!" exclaimed Joyce, with an understanding note in her voice.
"It's dreadful until you follow the bee, and find your Omar. You must
tell him about it, Mr. Ellestad."

Then she hurried away. Half an hour later she galloped by on the pony,
toward Phoenix. Lloyd was riding beside her. As they passed the ranch
she waved a greeting with the note which Mrs. Lee had given her.

"What do you think of her work?" asked Mr. Ellestad of his friend.

"One couldn't judge from a crude outline like that," was the answer.
"She's so young that it is bound to be amateurish. Still she certainly
shows originality, and she has a capacity for hard work. Her willingness
to go all the way to Phoenix for a few bars of music shows that she has
the right stuff in her. But I wouldn't encourage her if I were in your
place."

When Mr. Ellestad called at the Wigwam that afternoon, he found Joyce
hard at work. A row of finished programmes was already stretched out on
the table before her. Through the door that opened into the kitchen, he
could see Lloyd at the ironing-board. Her face was flushed, and there
was an anxious little frown between her eyes, because the wrinkles
wouldn't come out of the sheets, and the hot irons had scorched two
towels in succession. But she rubbed away with dogged persistence,
determined to finish all that was left in the basket, despite Joyce's
pleading that she should stop.

"Those things can wait till the last of the week just as well as not,"
she insisted. But Lloyd was unyielding.

"No, suh," she declared. "I nevah had a chance to i'on even a
pocket-handkerchief befoah, and I'm bound I'll do it, now I've begun."

There was a blister on one pink little palm, and a long red burn on the
back of her hand, but she kept cheerfully on until the basket was empty.

"Tell me about Mr. Armond," said Joyce, as she worked. "He reminds me of
some one I've seen. I've been trying all afternoon to think. You've
known him a long time, haven't you?"

"Yes, I met him abroad when he was a mere boy," answered Mr. Ellestad,
wishing that he had not been asked to say nothing about his friend's
career as an artist. The tale of his experiences and successes would
have been of absorbing interest to Joyce.

"Armond doesn't like to have his past discussed," he said, after a
pause. "He made a brilliant success of it until his health failed
several years ago. Since then he has grown so morose that he is not like
the same creature. He has lost faith in everything. I tell him that if
he would rouse himself to take some interest in people and things about
him,--if he'd even read, and get his mind off of himself, then he'd quit
cursing the day he was born, and pick up a little appetite. Then he
would live longer. If he were at some sanitarium they'd make him eat;
but here he won't go to the table half the time. Jo fixes up all sorts
of tempting extras for him, but he just looks at them, and shoves them
aside without tasting. The only thing I have heard him express a wish
for since he has been at the ranch is quail."

"Oh, we're going to have some for supper to-night," cried Joyce. "Jack
shot seven yesterday. He gets some nearly every day. I'll send Mr.
Armond one if you think he'd like it. That is, if they turn out all
right. My cooking isn't always a success, especially when my mind is on
something like this work."

[Illustration: "SHE LEANED OVER TO OFFER HIM THE LITTLE BASKET"]

Everybody in the family helped to get supper that night, even Norman, so
that Joyce might work on undisturbed till the last moment. The only part
that she took in the preparations was to superintend the cooking of the
quail, and to call out directions to the others, as she painted garlands
of roses and sprays of orange-blossoms on one programme after another.

"Spread one of the white fringed napkins out in the little brown covered
basket, Mary, please, and put in a knife and fork. And Lloyd, I wish
you'd set a saucer on the stove hearth where it'll get almost red-hot.
Jack, if you'll have the pony ready at the door I'll fly down to Mr.
Armond with a quail the minute they are done, so that he'll get it
piping hot. No, I'll take it myself, thank you. You boys are as hungry
as bears, and I've painted so hard all afternoon that I haven't a bit of
appetite. I'll feel more like eating if I have the ride first."

The ranch supper-bell was ringing as she started down the road on a
gallop, holding the basket carefully in one hand, and guiding the pony
with the other. Everybody had gone in to the dining-room but Mr. Armond.
Wrapped in a steamer-rug and overcoat, he sat just outside the door of
his tent, his hat pulled down over his eyes. Turning from the driveway
she rode directly across the lawn toward him. She was bareheaded, and
her face was glowing, not only from the rapid ride, but the kindly
impulse that prompted her coming.

He looked up in astonishment as she leaned over to offer him the little
basket.

"I've brought you a quail, Mr. Armond," she said, breathlessly. "You
must eat it quick, while it's blazing hot, and eat it every bit but the
bones, for it was cooked on purpose for you. It'll do you good."

Without an instant's pause she started off again, but he called her.
"Wait a moment, child. I haven't thanked you. Ellestad said you were
working at your programmes like a Trojan, and wouldn't stop long enough
to draw a full breath. You surely haven't finished them."

"No, it will take nearly two days longer," she said, gathering up the
reins again.

"And you stopped in the middle of it to do this for me!" he exclaimed.
"I certainly appreciate your taking so much time and trouble for me--an
entire stranger."

"Oh, no! You're not a stranger," she protested. "You're Mr. Ellestad's
friend."

"Then may I ask one more favour at your hands? I'd like to see your
programmes when they're finished,--before you send them away. There is
so little to interest one out here," he continued, apologetically, "that
if you don't mind humouring an invalid's whims----"

"Oh, I'd be glad to," cried Joyce, flushing. "I'll bring them down just
as soon as they're done. That is," she added, with a mischievous smile
dimpling her face, which made her seem even younger than she was, "if
you'll be good, and eat every bit of the quail."

"I'll promise," he replied, an answering smile lighting his face for an
instant. An easy promise to keep, he thought, as he lifted the lid, and
took out the hot covered dish. The quail on the delicately browned toast
was the most tempting thing he had seen in weeks.

"What a kind little soul she is," he said to himself, as he tasted the
first appetizing morsel, "fairly brimming over with consideration for
other people. As Ellestad says, I could do a lot for her, if it seemed
the right thing to encourage her."

Whether it was the quail, which he ate slowly, enjoying it to the last
mouthful, or whether it was the remembrance of a pair of honest,
friendly eyes, beaming down on him with neighbourly good-will and
sympathy, he could not tell, but as he went into his tent afterward and
lighted the lamp, somehow the desert seemed a little less lonely, the
outlook a trifle less hopeless.





CHAPTER XII.

PHIL HAS A FINGER IN THE PIE


PHIL went up to the Wigwam early next morning. Breakfast was just over,
and Joyce had begun painting again. He paused an instant at the front
door to watch her brown head bending over the table, and the quick
motion of her deft fingers. She was so absorbed in her task that she did
not look up, so after a moment he went on around the house to the
kitchen.

Mrs. Ware was lifting the dish-pan from its nail to its place on the
table, and Lloyd was standing beside her, enveloped in a huge apron,
holding a towel in her hands, ready to help. Norman, beside a chair on
which a clean napkin had been spread, was filling the salt-cellars.
Jack, having carried water to the tents, was busy chopping wood.

"Good mawning!" called Lloyd, waving her towel as Phil appeared in the
door. Mrs. Ware turned with such a cordial smile of welcome, that he
took it as an invitation to come in, and hung his hat on the post of a
chair.

"I want to have a finger in this pie," he announced. "I was told to stay
at home yesterday, but I don't intend to be snubbed to-day.

"Wait, Aunt Emily, that kettle is too heavy for you!"

He had called her Aunt Emily since the first time he had heard Lloyd do
it. "You don't care, do you?" he had asked. "It makes a fellow feel so
forlorn and familyless when he has to mister and madam everybody." She
was sewing a button on his coat for him at the time he asked her, and
she gave such a pleased assent that he stooped to leave a light kiss on
the smooth forehead where gray hair was beginning to mingle with the
brown.

Now he took the kettle from her before she could object, and began
pouring the boiling water into the pan. "Let me do this," he insisted.
"I haven't had a hand in anything of the sort since I was a little
shaver. It makes me think of a time when the servants were all away, and
Stuart and I helped Aunt Patricia. She paid us in peppermint sticks and
cinnamon drops."

"You'll get no candy here," she answered, laughing. "You might as well
go on if that's what you expect." But there was no resisting the
coaxing ways of this big handsome boy, who towered above her, and who
took possession in such a masterful way of her apron and dish-mop. His
coat and cuffs were off the next instant, and he began clattering the
china and silverware vigorously through the hot soap-suds.

Mrs. Ware, taking a big yellow bowl in her lap, sat down to pick over
some dried beans, and to enjoy the lively conversation which kept pace
with the rattle of the dishes. It was interrupted presently by a
complaint from Lloyd.

"Aunt Emily, he doesn't wash 'em clean! He's left egg all ovah this
spoon. That's the second time I've had to throw it back into the watah."

"Aunt Emily, it isn't so," mocked Phil, in a high falsetto voice,
imitating her accent. "It's bettah than she could do huhself. She's no
great shakes of a housekeepah."

"I'll show you," retorted Lloyd, throwing the spoon back into the pan
with a splash. "I'm going to make a pie foh dinnah to-day, and you won't
get any."

"Then probably I'll be the only one who escapes alive to tell the tale.
Aunt Emily, please invite me to dinner," he begged, "and mayn't I stay
out here, and watch her make it?"

"Of co'se I can't help it if she chooses to ask you to dinnah," said
Lloyd, loftily, when he had received his invitation, "but I most
certainly won't have you standing around in my way, criticizing me when
I begin to cook. You can fill the wood-box and brush up the crumbs and
hang these towels out on the line, if you want to, then you may go in
and watch Joyce paint."

"Oh, thank you!" answered Phil. "_Such_ condescension! _Such_
privileges! Your Royal Highness, I humbly make my bow!"

He bent low in a burlesque obeisance that a star actor might have
envied, and, throwing up a saucer and catching it deftly, began to sing:

    "The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts,
       Upon a summer day.
     But none could look--that selfish cook
       Drove every one away."

It was all the most idle nonsense, and yet, as they worked together in a
playful half-quarrel, Lloyd liked him better than she had at any time
before. He reminded her of Rob Moore. He was big like Rob, tall and
broad-shouldered, but much handsomer. Rob had teased her since
babyhood, and, when Phil began his banter in the same blunt, big-brother
fashion, it made her feel as if she had known him always. And yet he was
more like Malcolm than Rob, in some respects, she thought later. The
courteous way he sprang to pick up her handkerchief, the quick turn he
gave to some little remark, which made it a graceful compliment, his
gentlemanly consideration for Mrs. Ware--all that was like Malcolm.

Phil would not be driven out of the kitchen until he had exacted a
promise from Mrs. Ware that he might come the next day, and make the
dessert for the morrow's dinner, vowing that, if it were not heels over
head better than Lloyd's, he would treat everybody at the Wigwam and on
the ranch to a picnic at Hole-in-the-rock.

"Prop the door open, please," called Joyce, as he went into the
sitting-room from the kitchen. "I need some of that heat in here. It's
chilly this morning when one sits still."

So Lloyd, moving back and forth at her pastry-making, could see their
heads bending over the table, and hear snatches of an animated
discussion about a design he proposed for her to put on one of the
programmes.

"Put a line from 'Call me thine own' on this one," he said, "and have a
couple of turtle-doves perched up on the clef, cooing at each other, and
make little hearts for the notes."

"How brilliant!" cried Joyce. "Phil, you're a genius. Do think up some
more, for I'm nearly at my wits' end, trying to get thirty different
designs."

"Don't make them all so fine," he suggested. "Some of those people will
get it into their heads that matrimony is all roses." He lifted his
voice a little, so that Lloyd could not fail to hear. She was standing
before the moulding-board now, her sleeves tucked up, and a look of
intense seriousness on her face as she sifted flour, as if pie-making
were the most important business in the universe.

"Make the Queen of Hearts with a rolling-pin in her hand and a scowl on
her face, as she will look after the ceremony, when she takes it into
her head to make some tarts. Put a bar of 'Come, ye disconsolate,' with
a row of tiny pies for the notes, and the old king doubled up at the end
of it, with the knave running for a doctor."

"You horrid thing!" called Lloyd, wrathfully, from the kitchen. "You
sha'n't have a bite of these pies now."

"Nothing personal, I assure you," called Phil, laughing. "I'm only
helping the artist." But Joyce said, in a low tone, "It _is_ a little
personal, because she used to be called the Queen of Hearts so much. Did
you ever see her picture taken in that character, when she was dressed
in that costume for a Valentine party? It was years ago. Miss Marks made
some coloured photographs of her. You'll find one in that portfolio
somewhere, if you'll take the trouble to look through it. She's had so
many different nicknames," continued Joyce. Norman was hammering on
something in the kitchen now, so there was no need for her to lower her
voice.

"She is 'The Little Colonel' to half the Valley, and I suppose always
will be to her grandfather's friends. Then when she started to school,
about the time that picture was taken, she was such a popular little
thing that one of her teachers began calling her Queen of Hearts. Both
boys and girls used to fuss for the right to stand beside her in
recitations, and march next her at calisthenics, and she was sure to be
called first when they chose sides for their games at recess.

"Then, after she was in that play with her dog Hero, that Mary told you
about, the girls at boarding-school began calling her the Princess
Winsome, and then just Princess. Malcolm McIntyre, who took the part of
the knight who rescued her, never calls her anything but that now. There
she is, as she looked in the play when she sang the dove song."

Joyce pointed with her brush-handle to another photograph in the pile.
It was the same picture that Mary had showed him, the beautiful little
medallion of the Princess Winsome, holding the dove to her breast as she
sang, "Flutter and fly." The same picture which had swayed on the
pendulum in Roney's lonely cabin, repeating, with every tick of the
clock, "For love--will find--a way!"

Phil put it beside the other photograph, and studied them both intently
as Joyce went on.

"Then the other day, when her father was here, I noticed that he had a
new name for her. He called her that several times, and when he went
away, he said it in a tone that seemed to mean so much, 'Good-bye, my
little _Hildegarde_!'"

Phil looked from the pictures on the table to the original, standing in
the kitchen wielding a rolling-pin under Mrs. Ware's direction. The
morning sun, streaming through the window, was making a halo of her
hair. Somehow he found this last view the most pleasing. He said
nothing, however, only thrummed idly on the table, and hummed an old
song that had been running through his head all morning.

"What's that you're humming?" asked Joyce, when she had worked on in
silence several minutes.

Phil came to himself with a start. "I'm sure I don't know," he laughed.
"I wasn't conscious that I was making even an attempt to sing."

"It went this way," said Joyce, whistling the refrain, softly. "It's so
sweet."

"Oh, that," said Phil, recognizing the air. "That's a song that Elsie's
old English nurse used to sing her to sleep with.

    "'Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea,
     Her heart beats low and sad.'

She liked it because it had her name in it, and I liked it because of
the jingle of the chorus. It always seemed full of bells to me." He
hummed it lightly:

    "'Kling, lang ling,
     She seems to hear her bride-bells ring,
     Her bonny bride-bells ring.'

It must have been these bridal musicale programmes that brought it up to
me, for I haven't thought of it in years."

"And that suggests something to me," answered Joyce. "I haven't used
any wedding-bells on these programmes. Now, let me see. How can I put
them on?" She sat studying one of the empty cards intently.

"Here! This way!" cried Phil. "I can't draw it as it ought to be, but I
can see in my mind's eye what you want. Put a Cupid up in each top
corner, with a bunch of five narrow ribbons, strung across from one to
the other in narrow, wavy lines, and hang the little bells on them for
notes. Then the ends of the ribbons can trail down the sides of the
programmes sort of fluttery and graceful. Pshaw! I can't make it look
like anything, but I can see exactly how it ought to look."

He scribbled his pencil across the lines he had attempted to draw, and
started to tear the paper in disgust, when she caught it from him.

"I know just what you mean," she cried. "And Phil Tremont, you _are_ a
genius. This will be the best design in the whole lot." She was
outlining it quickly as she spoke. "You ought to be a designer. You'd
make your fortune at it, for originality is what counts. Why don't you
study it?"

"I did have it in mind for a week or so," answered Phil, "but I wanted
most of all to be an architect, or something of the sort. Father wanted
me to study medicine, and grandfather thought I'd do better at civil
engineering. But I couldn't settle down to anything. I suppose the truth
of the matter was I was thinking too much about the good times I was
having, and didn't want to buckle down to anything that meant hard
digging. So last year father said I wasn't getting any kind of
discipline, and that I had to go to a military school for it. That there
I would at least learn punctuality and order, and that military training
would fit me to be a good citizen just as much as to be a good soldier."

"What does he think about it now?" answered Joyce. "I beg your pardon,"
she added, hastily. "I had no right to ask such a personal question."

"That's all right," answered Phil. "I don't care a rap if you do talk
about it. It's worried me a good deal thinking how cut up the old pater
will feel when he finds out about it. He thought he'd left me in such
good hands, shut up where I couldn't get out into any trouble, and I
hated to write that they'd fired me almost as soon as his back was
turned. If I could have talked to him, and explained both sides of it,
how unfair the Major was, and all that, and how we were just out for a
lark, with the best intentions in the world, I could have soon
convinced him that I meant all right, and he wouldn't have minded so
much. But I never was any good at letter-writing, so I kept putting it
off the first two weeks I was here. I wrote last week, but it takes a
month to send a letter and get an answer, so it'll be some time yet
before I hear from him. In the meantime, I'm taking life easy, and
worrying as little as possible."

Joyce made no reply when he paused, only bent her head a little lower
over her work; but Phil, unusually sensitive to mental influences, felt
her disapprobation as keenly as if she had spoken. The silence began to
grow uncomfortable, and finally he asked, lightly, toying with a
paper-knife while he spoke, "Well, what do you think of the situation?"

"Do you want to know honestly?" asked Joyce, her head bending still
lower over her work.

"Yes, honestly."

Her face grew red, but looking up her clear gray eyes met his
unflinchingly. "Well, I think you're the very brightest boy that I ever
knew, anywhere, and that it would be a very easy thing for you to make
your mark in the world in any way you pleased, if you would only make up
your mind to do it. But it's lazy of you to loaf around all winter
doing nothing, not even studying by yourself, and it's selfish to
disappoint your father when he is so ambitious for you, and it's--yes,
it's _wicked_ for you to waste opportunities that some boys would almost
give their eyes for. There!"

"Whew!" whistled Phil, getting up to pace the floor, with his hands in
his pockets. "That's the worst roast I _ever_ got."

"Well, you asked for it," said Joyce. "You said for me to tell you
honestly what I thought."

"What would you have me to do?" asked Phil, impatiently, anxious to
justify himself. "A fellow with any spirit couldn't get down and beg to
be taken back to school, when he knew all the time that he was only
partly in the wrong, and that it was unjust and arbitrary of the
officers to require what they did."

"That isn't the only school in the country," said Joyce, quietly, "and
for a fellow six feet tall, and seventeen years old, a regular athlete
in appearance, to wait for somebody to lead him back to his books does
seem a little ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"Confound it!" he began, angrily, then stopped, for Joyce was smiling up
into his face with a friendliness he could not resist, and there was
more than censure in her eyes. There was sincere admiration for the
handsome boy whom she found so entertaining and companionable.

"Now don't get uppity," she laughed. "I'm only saying to you what Elsie
would say if she were here."

Phil shrugged his shoulders. "Not much!" he exclaimed. "You don't know
Elsie. She thinks her big brother is perfection. She has always stood up
for me in the face of everything. Daddy never failed to let me off easy
when she patched up the peace between us. _She_ wouldn't rake me over
the coals the way you do."

Joyce liked the expression that crossed his face as he spoke of Elsie,
and the gentler tone in which he said Daddy.

"All the more reason, then," she answered, "that somebody else should do
the raking. I hope I haven't been officious. It's only what I would say
to Jack under the same circumstances. I'm so used to preaching to the
boys that I couldn't help sailing in when you gave me leave. I won't do
it any more, though. See! Here is the design you suggested. I've
finished it."

Mollified by her tone and her evident eagerness to leave the subject, he
dropped into the chair beside her again, and sat talking until Lloyd
called them both out to admire her pies. There were two of them on the
table, hot from the oven, so crisp and delicately browned, that Lloyd
danced around them, clicking a couple of spoons in each hand like
castanets, and calling Mrs. Ware to witness that she had made them
entirely by herself.

"Don't they look delicious?" she cried. "Did you evah see moah tempting
looking pies in all yoah life? I wish grandfathah could have a slice of
that beautiful custa'd with the meringue on top. He'd think Mom Beck
made it, and he'd nevah believe, unless he saw it with his own eyes,
that I could make such darling cross-bahs as are on that cherry taht."

"I wish you'd listen!" cried Phil. "Don't you know that proverb about
letting another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth?"

"I'm not praising _me_," retorted Lloyd. "I'm just praising my pies, and
if they're good, and I know they're good, why shouldn't I say so?
They're the first I evah made, and I think I have a right to be proud of
their turning out so well. Of co'se they wouldn't have been this nice if
Aunt Emily hadn't showed me what to do."

"Let's sample them now," proposed Jack, who had been called in from the
wood-pile to pay his respects to the pastry.

Lloyd threw herself between the table and Jack with a little scream of
remonstrance, as he advanced threateningly with a knife.

"I believe Lloyd is prouder of making those old pies than she was of
shooting the duck. Confess, now, aren't you?" he insisted.

"Yes, I am," she answered, emphatically.

"You had your picture taken with a duck," suggested Phil. "Suppose you
have one now with the pies to add to your collection. Come on and get
your camera, and I'll take a companion piece to the hunting-picture.
We'll call this the 'Queen of Tarts.' Stand out back of the tent, and
hold the custard pie in one hand, and the cherry tart in the other."

With the dimples deepening in her cheeks as the whole family gathered
around to watch the performance, Lloyd took her position out-of-doors,
with the white tent for a background. Holding her hands stiffly out in
front of her, she stood like a statue, while Jack and Joyce each brought
out a pie, and balanced them in the middle of her little pink, upturned
palms.

"I want to take two shots," said Phil, waiting for them to step out of
range. "There are several blank films left on this roll. Now," he
ordered, when the shutter clicked after the first exposure, "hold still,
we'll try another. Suppose you put the plates up on the tips of your
fingers, the way hotel waiters do. They carry things that way with such
an easy offhand grace. I always admired it."

"I should say it was offhand!" cried Jack. For Lloyd, obeying orders,
clutched frantically after the cherry tart, with a shriek of dismay. It
had refused to stay poised on her finger-tips.

"Topside down, of co'se," she wailed, as the broken plate fell in one
place, and the pastry in another. "And the juice is running all ovah me,
and the darling little cross-bahs are all in the sand!"

Phil hastily clicked the shutter again. He was sure that the second snap
had caught the tart in the act of falling, and with the third film he
wanted to preserve the expression of surprise and dismay that clouded
Lloyd's face. It was one of the most ludicrous expressions he had ever
seen.

"Pride goeth before destruction," he quoted, laughingly.

"I wish you'd hush up with yoah old proverbs, Phil Tremont," cried
Lloyd, half-laughing and half-angry. "It's all yoah fault, anyway. You
knew I'd spill that taht if I held it that way, and I just believe you
did it on purpose. You knew when you first saw those pies it would be
useless for you to try to make any dessert to-morrow that would half-way
come up to them, and you deliberately planned to get them out of the
way, so you wouldn't have to stand the test. You were afraid you'd have
to give the picnic you promised."

"Sputter away, if it will ease your mind any," laughed Phil. "It was
worth the picnic to see your frantic grab after that tart. But honestly,
Lloyd," he said, growing serious as he saw she really cared, "I'm as
sorry as I can be that it happened, and I'll do anything you say to make
atonement. I'll withdraw from the contest, award you the laurels, and
give the picnic, anyhow."

"There's nothing the matter with the custard pie," piped up Norman,
"'cept'n you can see where Joyce's fingers jabbed into the meringue when
she caught it from Lloyd. I think it would be safer to eat it now before
anything else happens."

"No, we'll set mamma to guard it till the rest of the dinner is ready,"
said Joyce, leading the way back to the kitchen. "If everybody will fly
around and help, we'll have it a little earlier to-day."

It was one of the jolliest meals that Phil had had in the Wigwam.
"Let's all go to Phoenix this afternoon," proposed Phil, when they had
gone back to the sitting-room. "We can take the films in to the
photographer, and have them developed. Joyce, you may ride my horse, and
I'll get one from Mrs. Lee."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Joyce, looking wistfully through the window. "The
outdoors never did look so tempting, it seems to me, and those
programmes are getting so monotonous I can hardly make myself go back to
them. I wish I could go. But I can't shirk even for a few hours, or they
might miss getting there in time."

"Couldn't anything tempt you to go?" urged Phil.

She shook her head resolutely. "'Not all the king's horses and all the
king's men' could draw me away from these programmes till they are
finished."

"No wonder she preached me such a sermon on loafing, this morning,"
thought Phil, as he rode away beside Jack, with the roll of films in his
pocket. "Anybody with that much energy and perseverance doesn't need to
go to the School of the Bees. It makes her all the harder on the drones.
And I know that's what she thinks I am."




CHAPTER XIII.

A CHANGE OF FORTUNE


IT was nearly two o'clock next day when the thirtieth programme was
finished and placed in the last row of dainty cards, laid out for the
family's farewell inspection. While Lloyd cut the squares of
tissue-paper which were to lie between them, Joyce brought the box in
which they were to be packed and the white ribbons to tie them.

Jack, having saddled Washington, was blacking his shoes and making other
preparations for his ride to town. A special trip had to be made, in
order to get the package to the Phoenix post-office in time.

"They might wait until morning, I suppose," said Joyce, as she began
placing them carefully in piles of ten. "But it is best to allow all the
time possible for delays. Then the programmes have to be written on them
after they get to Plainsville. Oh, I _hope_ Mrs. Link will like them!"

"I don't see how she can help it!" exclaimed Lloyd. "They're lovely, and
I think you'd be so proud of them you wouldn't know what to do."

"I am pleased with them," admitted Joyce, stopping to take one last peep
at the pretty rose-garlanded Cupids ringing the bride-bells, which Phil
had suggested. It was the best design in the lot, she thought.

"Oh, I forgot!" she exclaimed, suddenly, looking up in dismay. "What
shall I do? I promised Mr. Armond that I'd let him see these cards
before I sent them away."

"You won't have time now," suggested Lloyd.

"I suppose Jack could wait a few minutes, but I thought we'd start over
to Shaw's ranch just as soon as the cards were off. I didn't want to
lose a minute in getting my hive of bees, after I'd earned them. It's
such a long walk over there and back, that I don't feel like going to
the ranch first."

"Let Jack stop and show them to Mr. Armond," suggested her mother. "He's
always so careful that he can be trusted to tie the box up safely
afterward."

"Oh, he's _safe_ enough," answered Joyce, "but he'd make such a mess of
it, tying and untying the white ribbons on the inside of the package.
He can't make a decent bow to save his life. He'd have them all in
knots and strings, and after all the care I've taken I want Mrs. Link to
find them just as they leave me."

For a moment Joyce stood undecided, regretting her promise to Mr.
Armond, and sorely tempted to break it.

"He won't really care," she thought, but his own words came back to her
plaintively: "There is so little to interest one here,--if you don't
mind humouring an invalid's whims."

She couldn't forget the hopeless melancholy of his face, and what Mr.
Ellestad had said to her about him: "He's just where Shapur was when the
caravan went on without him." And she remembered that in the story
Shapur had cursed the day he was born, and laid his head in the dust.

"I'll go," she exclaimed. "Jack can follow as soon as he is ready, and
I'll hand the package to him as he passes. I'll be back as soon as I
can, Lloyd, and then we'll start right over to Mr. Shaw's. You explain
to Jack, please, mamma, and give him the money to pay the postage."

Stopping only long enough to write the address on the wrapper, she
hurried down the road, bareheaded, toward the ranch. Lloyd sat down on
the front door-step to wait for her return. Opening a book, in which she
had become interested, she was soon so deep in the story that she
scarcely noticed when Jack rode away, a quarter of an hour later,
glancing up for just an instant as she waved her hand mechanically in
answer to his call.

The kitchen clock struck half-past two, then three. With the last stroke
came a vague consciousness that it was growing late, and that Joyce was
long in coming, but the absorbing interest of the story made her
immediately forgetful again of her surroundings.

It was nearly four when Mrs. Ware, coming out beside her on the step,
stood shading her eyes with her hand to peer down the road.

"I can't imagine what keeps Joyce so long," she said, anxiously. "It
will soon be too late for you to go to the Shaws."

But even as she spoke, Joyce came in sight, running as Lloyd had never
seen her run before. She had left the dusty road, and was bobbing along
on the edge of the desert, where the hard, dry sand, baked into a crust,
made travelling easier.

"Oh, you'll never, never guess what kept me!" she called, as she hurried
up to the door, eager and breathless. Seizing her mother around the
waist, she gave her a great squeeze.

"Oh, I'm so happy! So happy and excited that I don't know whether I'm on
my head or my heels. I feel like a cyclone caught in a jubilee, or a
jubilee caught in a cyclone, I don't know which. There never was such
glorious good fortune in the world for anybody!"

"Do stop yoah prancing and dancing and tell us," demanded Lloyd, "or
we'll think that you've lost yoah mind."

Joyce sank down beside her on the door-step. Her face was shining with a
great gladness, and she could hardly find breath to begin.

"Oh, there aren't words good enough to tell it in!" she gasped.

"Mr. Armond is an artist, mother, a really great one, who has had
pictures hung in the Salon and the Academy. Mr. Ellestad walked part of
the way home with me, and told me about him. He studied for years in
Paris, and lived in the Latin Quarter, and had a studio there, just like
Cousin Kate's friend, Mr. Harvey. And _that's_ the man Mr. Armond looks
like," she added, triumphantly. "I've been trying to think ever since I
first met him, who I had seen before with a short Vandyke beard like
his, and long, alive-looking fingers, that seem to have brains of their
own."

"And that's what makes you so glad," laughed Lloyd, "to think you've
discovered the resemblance? Do get to the point. I'm wild to know."

"Well, he liked my work, thought it showed originality and promise, and,
if mamma is willing, he wants to give me lessons. Think of that, Lloyd
Sherman,--lessons from an artist, a really great artist like that! Why,
it would mean more for me than years of class instruction in the Art
League, or anywhere else. He seemed pleased when I told him that I
wanted to do illustrating, because he said that that was something
practical, and work that would find a ready market. He told me so many
interesting things about famous illustrators that he has known, that I
have come away all on fire to begin. My fingers fairly tingle. Oh,
mamma!" she cried, two great happy tears welling up into her eyes.
"Isn't it splendid? The story of Shapur is true! For me the desert holds
a greater opportunity than kings' houses could offer!"

"But the price, my dear little girl--"

"And that's the best of it," interrupted Joyce. "He asked to be allowed
to do it for nothing. Time hangs so heavily on his hands that he said it
would be a charity to give him something to do, and Mr. Ellestad told
me afterward, as we walked home, that I ought to let him, because it's
the first thing that he has taken any interest in for months; that with
something to occupy his mind and make him contented, he would get better
much faster.

"When I tried to thank him, and told him that he had showed me a better
way to the City of my Desire than the one I had planned for myself, he
said, with the brightest kind of a smile, 'I expect to get far more out
of this arrangement than you, my little girl. _You_ are the alchemist
whose courage and hope shall help me distil some drop of Contentment out
of this dreary existence.'

"He is going to drive up here to-morrow, to ask you about it, and to see
the work I have already done. I'm glad now that I saved all those
charcoal sketches of block hands and ears and things. And I'm going to
get out all those still life studies I did with Miss Brown, and pin them
up on the wall, so he'll know just how far I've gone, and where to start
in with me."

"Get them out now," said Lloyd. "You never did show them to me."

There was some very creditable work hidden away in the old portfolio,
and, while they talked and looked and arranged the studies on the wall,
time slipped by unnoticed.

"Aren't you mighty proud, Aunt Emily?" asked Lloyd, stepping back for a
final view, when the exhibit was duly arranged.

"Proud and glad," answered Mrs. Ware, with a happy light in her eyes.
"It was always my dream to be an artist myself, and now to see my
unfulfilled ambitions realized in Joyce more than compensates for all my
disappointments."

"Phil's coming," called Norman, from the yard.

"And we haven't started for the bees!" exclaimed Joyce. "It's so late,
we'll have to put it off until to-morrow."

But all plans for the morrow were laid aside when Phil told his errand.
He would not dismount, but paused just a moment to invite them to the
promised picnic at Hole-in-the-rock.

"Everybody on the ranch is going," he explained. "Even Jo, to make the
coffee and unpack the lunch. There'll be a carriage here for you, Aunt
Emily, at three o'clock, and you must let Mary and Holland stay home
from school to go. No, don't bother to take any picnic baskets," he
interrupted, hastily, as Mrs. Ware started to say something about lunch.
"This is my affair. Jo is equal to anything, even cherry tarts and
custard pies, and I must make the atonement I promised to Lloyd, for
spilling hers."

Waiting only long enough to hear their pleased acceptance, he dashed off
down the road again. Ever since her arrival in Arizona Lloyd had wanted
to see the famous hole in the rock. It lay several miles across the
desert, in a great red butte. There was a picture of it in the ranch
parlour, and nearly every tourist who passed through Phoenix made a
pilgrimage to the spot, and took snap shots of this curious freak of
nature.

Climbing up the butte toward it, one seemed to be going into a mighty
cave, but when he had passed up into the opening, and down over a ledge
of rock, he saw that the cave led straight through the butte, like an
enormous tunnel, and at the farther end opened out on the other side of
the mountain, giving a wide outlook over the surrounding desert. It was
a favourite spot for picnic parties, but of all ever gathered there,
none had had so many preparations made for the comfort of the guests.
Phil rode over several times; once to be sure that the wood he had
ordered for the camp-fire had been delivered, and again to take a load
of canvas chairs, rubber blankets, rugs, and cushions, so that even the
invalids on the ranch could enjoy the outing.

It was the first of March. Where the irrigating ditches ran, almond and
peach orchards were pink with bloom. California poppies, golden as the
sunshine, nodded on the edges of the waving green wheat. Even the dry,
hard desert was sweet in its miracle of blossoming. A carpet of bloom
covered it. Stems so short that they could scarcely raise the buds they
bore above the sand bravely pierced the hard-baked crust. Great masses
of yellow and blue, white, lavender, and scarlet transformed the bleak
solitary places for a little while into a glory of colour and perfume.
An odour, sweet as if blown across acres of narcissus, made Mrs. Ware
turn her head with a little cry of pleasure as they drove along toward
the butte the afternoon of the picnic.

"It's the desert mistletoe," explained Phil, who was following on
horseback with Lloyd and Joyce the surrey which Jack was driving.

"It is in blossom now, hanging in bunches from all those high bushes
over yonder. Mrs. Lee says it isn't like ours. The berries, instead of
being little white wax ones like pearls, shade from a deep red to the
palest rose-pink."

"How lovely!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I hope I'll see some of the berries
befoah I go home. Oh, deah! the days are slipping by so fast. The month
will be gone befoah I know it."

Phil, seeing the wistful expression in the eyes raised to his for a
moment, laid a detaining hand on her bridle-rein. "Let's walk the
horses, then," he said, laughingly, "and make the minutes last just as
long as possible. We'll have to fill the few days left to us so full of
pleasant things that you'll never forget them. I don't want you to
forget this day anyhow, because it's in your especial honour that this
picnic is given--because you're such an accomplished Queen of Hearts."

"Tahts you mean," she answered, correcting him.

"Maybe I mean both," he replied, with an admiring glance that sent a
quick blush to her face, and made her spur her pony on ahead.

There were more things than that fragrant, breezy ride across the desert
to make her remember the day. There was the delicious supper that Jo
spread out under the sheltering ledge of rock at the entrance to the
great hole. There were the jokes and conundrums that passed around as
they ate, the witty repartee of the boy from Belfast that kept them all
laughing, and the stories gathered, like the guests, from all parts of
the world.

"This is the first picnic I have been to since the one at the old mill,
when you had your house-party," said Joyce, snuggling up beside Lloyd
against a pile of cushions, after supper, as the blazing camp-fire
dispelled the gathering shadows of the twilight.

"There is as much difference between the two picnics as there is between
a cat and a tigah," said Lloyd, tingling with the horror of an Indian
story that the cowboy had just told. "Mine was so tame and this is so
exciting. I'm glad that I didn't live out West in the times they are
telling about. Just listen!"

Phil had asked for an Indian story from each one, and Mrs. Lee had begun
to tell her experiences during her first years on the ranch. No actual
harm had come to her, but several terrible frights during a dreadful
Apache uprising. She had been alone on the ranch, with only George, who
was a baby then, and a neighbour's daughter for company. They had seen
the smoke and flames shoot up from a distant ranch, where the Indians
fired all the buildings and haystacks; and they had waited in terror
through the long hours, not knowing what moment an arrow might come
hurtling through the window of the little adobe house, where they
cowered in darkness.

In frightened whispers they discussed what they should do if the
Apaches should come, and the only means of escape left to them was to
take the baby and climb down the jagged rocks that lined the walls of
the well. The water was about shoulder deep. Even that was a dangerous
proceeding, for there was the fear that the baby might cry and call
attention to their hiding-place, or that some thirsty Indian, coming for
water, might discover them.

Mrs. Lee told it in such a realistic way that Lloyd almost held her
breath, feeling in part the same fear that had seized the helpless women
as they waited for the dreaded war-whoop, and watched the flames of
their neighbours' dwellings. She shuddered when she heard of the scene
that was discovered at the desolated ranch next morning. An entire
family had been massacred and scalped, and left beside the charred ruins
of their home. Even the little blue-eyed baby had not escaped.

As the twilight deepened, the stories passing around the camp-fire
seemed to grow more dreadful. Mary was afraid to look behind her, and
presently, hiding her face in her mother's lap, stuck her fingers in her
ears. It was a relief to more than Mary when Jo, who had been packing
the dishes back into the baskets behind the scenes, came rushing into
the circle around the fire so excited that, in his wild mixture of
Japanese and broken English, he could hardly make himself understood. He
was holding out both forefingers, from each of which trickled a little
stream of blood. Each bore the gash of a carving-knife, which had
slipped through his fingers in his careless handling of it, as he kept
his ears strained to hear the Indian stories.

[Illustration: "HE WAS HOLDING OUT BOTH FOREFINGERS"]

He laughed and jabbered excitedly, with a broad grin on his face.
Finally he succeeded in making Mrs. Lee understand that the cutting of
both forefingers at the same moment was the sign that there was some
extraordinary good fortune in store for him. It was the luckiest thing
that could have befallen him, and he declared that he must go at once to
the Chinese lottery in Phoenix.

"If I toucha ticket with these," he cried, holding up his bleeding
fingers, "I geta heap much money; fo', five double times so much as I
puta in. I be back fo' geta breakfus'," he called, suddenly darting
away. Before Mrs. Lee could protest, he was on his wheel, tearing across
the desert trail toward Phoenix like some uncanny wild thing of the
night.

"The superstitious little heathen!" exclaimed Mrs. Lee. "If he should
win, I may never lay eyes on him again. He's not the first good cook
that I've lost in that way. I have found that, if one once gets the
gambling fever, I may as well begin to look immediately for a new one."

"Chris says that he has seen men lose ten thousand dollars at a time,"
broke in Holland, his eyes big with interest. "Prospectors used to come
in from the mines with their gold-dust and nuggets, and they'd spread
down a blanket right on the street corner and play sometimes till they'd
lose everything they had."

"It's the curse of the West," sighed Mrs. Lee. "I could tell some
pitiful tales of the young men and boys I have known, who came out here
for their health, got infatuated with the different games of chance, and
lost everything. One man I knew was such a nervous wreck from the shock
of finding himself a pauper as well as an invalid that he lost his mind
and committed suicide. Another had to be taken care of in his last days
and be buried by a charitable society, and another had to write to his
sister that he was penniless. She sewed for a living, and she sewed then
to support him, till she worked herself ill and died before he did. He
spent his last days in the almshouse."

"We should have showed Jo Alaka's eyes, and told him the Indian legend,"
said Mr. Ellestad, pointing up to the stars. "Do you see those two
bright ones just over Camelback Mountain? Look up in a straight line
from the head, and you will see two stars unusually brilliant and
twinkling. Those are the eyes of the god Alaka. He lost them in
gambling. An old settler told me the story. He got it from an Indian,
and, as I read something like it in a Chicago paper this winter, I think
we may be justified in believing it. At least it is as plausible as the
old myths the ancients told of the stars,--Cassiopeia's chair, for
instance, and Leo's sickle."

"Tell it," begged Lloyd. "I'd rathah heah them than those blood and
thundah Apache stories. I'll not be able to close my eyes to-night."

Every voice in the circle joined in the chorus of assents that went up,
except Phil's, and no one noticed his silence but Lloyd.

It seemed to her that he had looked uncomfortable ever since Mrs. Lee
had spoken so feelingly of the curse of the West; but she told herself
that it must be just her imagination,--that it was the flickering
shadows of the camp-fire that gave his face its peculiar expression. He
moved back into the darkness against the rock, with his hat over his
eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story:

"Once there was a young god named Alaka sent by the Great Spirit to live
awhile among the cliff-dwellers of the Southwest. Now in that country
there is a fever that lays hold of the children of the sun. It comes you
know not how, and you cannot stop it. And this fever that runs hot in
the veins of men began to course through the blood of Alaka, a fierce
fever to gamble.

"At first, when men challenged him to pit his skill against theirs, he
refused, knowing that the Great Spirit had forbidden it; but they jeered
him, saying: 'Ah, ha! He is afraid that he will lose. This can be no
god, or he would not fear us.' So when they had made a mock of him until
he could no longer endure it, he cried: 'Come! I will show you that I am
a god! that I fear nothing!'

"Forgetting all that the Great Spirit had enjoined upon him, he plunged
madly into the game. Now the most precious thing known to that people is
the turquoise, for it is the stone that stole its colour from the sky.
Around the neck of the young god hung a string of these turquoises, and
one by one he lost them, till the morning found him with only an empty
string in his hand.

"Still the fever was upon him, and he could not assuage it, so he put up
his shells from the Great Water in the west. These people had heard of
a great water many days' journey toward the setting sun, but to the
dwellers in the Land of Thirst it seemed incredible to them that there
could be so much water in the world as Alaka told them of. But they
looked upon the exquisite colour of the shells he brought, which held
the murmur of the sea in their hearts, and counted them wonderful
treasures. And they gambled all day with Alaka to gain possession of
them.

"Still the fever waxed hotter than ever within him, and, when he had
lost his shells, he put up his measure of sacred meal. When he lost
that, they made a mock of him again, saying not that he was afraid to
lose, but that he had no skill, that he was not a god. He was less than
a man,--he was only a papoose, and that he should play no more until he
had learned wisdom.

"Then Alaka was beside himself with rage. 'I will show you,' he cried.
'I will venture such mighty stakes that I must win.' He plucked out his
right eye and laid it where the turquoises, the shells, and the sacred
meal had lain. But the eye was lost also, and after that the left eye,
so that, when morning dawned, he staggered into the sunrise, blind and
ruined.

"Then he called upon the Great Spirit to give him back his sight, but
the Great Spirit was angry with him, and drove him away into the Land of
Shadows. And He caught up the eyes and said: 'I will hang them up among
the stars to be a warning for ever to the children of men not to
gamble.'

"So they hang there to this day, and the wise look up, and, seeing them,
pray to the Great Spirit to keep them from the fever; but the unheeding
go on, till, like Alaka, they lose their all, and are lost themselves in
the Land of Shadow."

That was the last story told that evening around the camp-fire. The moon
was coming up, and Phil brought out Mrs. Ware's old guitar, which he had
restrung for the occasion. Striking a few rattling chords, he started
off on an old familiar song, calling on all the company to join. His
voice was a surprise to every one, a full, sweet tenor, strong and
clear, that soared out above all the others, except Mrs. Lee's full,
high soprano. The Scotchman rumbled along with a heavy bass. One by one
the others caught up the song, even little Norman joining in the chorus.
Lloyd was the only one who sat silent.

"Sing," whispered Joyce, giving her a commanding nudge. Lloyd shook her
head. "It's so heavenly sweet I want to listen," she replied, under
cover of the song. The music and the mountains and the moonlight, with
the wide, white desert stretching away on every side, seemed to cast
some sort of witchery over her, and she sat with hands clasped and lips
parted, almost afraid to breathe, for fear that what seemed to be a
beautiful dream would come to end.

A tremulous little sigh escaped her when it did come to an end. "It's
time to strike the trail again," called Mrs. Lee. "That is the worst of
these outings. We can't stay singing on the mountains. We have to get
down to earth again. My return to valley life will take me into the
deepest depths if Jo doesn't come back in the morning to get breakfast."

"Oh, it was so beautiful!" sighed Lloyd, later, when the party finally
started homeward across the moon-whitened desert. It had taken some time
to collect all the chairs, hampers, and cushions which George and
Holland took home in the ranch wagon. The moon was directly overhead.

Lloyd was riding beside Phil a little in advance of the others. "It was
the very nicest picnic I evah went to, Phil," she said, "and it's the
loveliest memory that I'll have to take home with me of this visit to
Arizona."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," he answered, taking off his hat, and riding
along beside her bareheaded in the moonlight. How big and handsome he
looked, she thought, sitting up so erect in his saddle, with his eyes
smiling down into hers.

"I don't want you ever to forget--" he hesitated an instant, then added
in a lower tone, "Arizona."

The sweet odours of the night came blowing up from every direction, the
ethereal fragrance of the mistletoe bloom, the heavy perfume of the
orange-blossoms hanging white in distant orchards. Behind them the
picnickers began to sing again, "Roll along, silver moon, guide the
traveller on his way."

Lloyd looked around for Joyce. She was riding far in the rear of the
caravan, beside the carriage where Mrs. Lee led the chorus. Presently
the old tune changed, and some one started the Bedouin love-song, "From
the desert I come to thee."

Looking down at her again with smiling eyes, Phil took up the words,
sending them rolling out on the night in a voice that thrilled her with
its sweetness, as they rode on side by side across moonlighted desert:

    "_Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old,
     And the leaves of the Judgment
       Book unfold!_"




CHAPTER XIV.

THE LOST TURQUOISES


THAT night there was a whispered consultation in Mrs. Ware's tent while
Lloyd was undressing in the other one. Sitting on the edge of her
mother's bed, Joyce rapidly outlined a plan which she had thought of on
her way home.

"You see, I haven't done anything special at all to give Lloyd a good
time," she began. "This picnic was Phil's affair. When I was at her
house-party, there was something new on the programme nearly every day.
She's been here nearly a month now, and her visit will soon be over. I'd
like to give her one real larky day before she goes. Mrs. Lee said that
I could have Bogus to-morrow, and, as it is Saturday, the children will
be at home to help you. So I thought it would be fun for Jack and Lloyd
and me to ride over to the Indian school. It's so interesting, and it
doesn't cost anything to get in. Then we could go on to the ostrich
farm just outside of Phoenix. Lloyd wants to get some kodak pictures of
the ostriches. The admission fee will only be seventy-five cents for the
three of us. I can pay that out of the money that Mrs. Link sent, and
get a nice little lunch at Coffee Al's restaurant, and still have enough
left to pay for my hive of bees. We can spend the rest of the afternoon
prowling around the curio shops and picture stores. Lloyd wants to get
ever so many things to take home,--bead belts and moccasins, and things
made out of cactus and orangewood. I haven't said anything to her about
it yet, but Phil said that if we went he would join us."

"I think that is a very good plan," said Mrs. Ware, entering into
whatever Joyce proposed with hearty interest. "You'd better not tell her
to-night, or you'll lie awake talking about it too long, and you'll need
to make an early start, you know."

By half-past eight next morning the little cavalcade was on its way,
Jack and Lloyd riding on ahead, and Phil and Joyce following leisurely.
The road they took led through irrigated lands, and green fields and
blooming orchards greeted them at every turn, instead of the waste
stretches of desert that they were accustomed to seeing.

"I wish you'd look!" exclaimed Lloyd, drawing rein to wait for Joyce
and Phil, and then pointing to a field where a boy was ploughing a long,
straight furrow. "That's an _Indian_ ploughing there! An Indian in a
cadet unifawm, with brass buttons on it. Doesn't it seem queah? Jack
says it's the unifawm of the school, and that they have to weah it when
they hiah out to the fahmahs. This is paht of their education. I like
them best in tomahawks and blankets. It seems moah natural."

"This isn't Hiawatha's land," laughed Phil, "nor the Pathfinder's
country. I was disappointed, too, to find them so tame and
unromantic-looking, but they're certainly more pleasant as neighbours
since they have taken to civilization. You remember the horrible tales
we heard last night."

Lloyd had expected to see a large school-building, but she was surprised
to find in addition so many other buildings. Dormitories, workshops, a
public hall, and the fine, wide streets leading around the central
square gave the appearance of a thrifty little village. They lingered
long in the kindergarten, where the bright-eyed little papooses were so
interested in watching them that they almost forgot the song they were
singing about "Baby's ball so soft and round." They went through the
great kitchens, where Indian girls were learning to cook, and the
tailoring establishment where the boys were turning out the new
uniforms. Down in one of the parlours a little eagle-eyed girl, with
features strikingly like those of Sitting Bull, practised the
five-finger exercises at the piano. Only twice did they see anything
that reminded them of the primitive Indians. In one of the workshops a
swarthy boy sat before a loom such as the old squaws used to have,
weaving patiently a Navajo blanket. And in one of the buildings where
dressmaking was taught there was a table surrounded by busy
bead-workers, working on chains and belts and gaily decorated trinkets
that made Lloyd wish for a bottomless purse. They were all so tempting.

So much time was occupied in watching the classes in wood-carving, and
in listening to recitations in the various rooms, that it was nearly
noon when they reached the ostrich farm. It was not the ranch where the
great birds were hatched and raised, but a large enclosure near the
street-car line, where they were brought to be exhibited to the
tourists. So, after watching the foolish-looking creatures awhile,
laughing at their comical expressions as they tilted mincingly up and
down in what Lloyd called the perfection of cake-walking, and taking
several snap-shots of them, Joyce proposed that they should leave their
horses at a corral farther down the street, and go at once for their
lunch.

It was the first time that Jack had been inside the restaurant, and he
was glad that Phil, who often lunched there, was with them to take the
lead. He felt very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, as
he marched in behind him, and, while he secretly admired the lordly air
with which Phil gave his orders, he saw that the girls were impressed by
it, too, and he inwardly resented being made to appear such an
insignificant small boy by contrast.

He had supposed that they would sit up on the stools at the
lunch-counters which one could see from the street. That is where he, in
his ignorance, would have piloted the party. But Phil, passing them by,
led the way up-stairs. An attractive-looking dining-room opened out from
the upper hall, but, ignoring that also, Phil kept on to a balcony
overlooking the street, where there were several small tables.

"They serve out here in hot weather," he said, "and it's warm enough
to-day, I'm sure. Besides, we'll be all by ourselves, and can see what
is going on down below. Here, Sambo!"

He beckoned to a coloured waiter passing through the hall, and soon had
him scurrying around in haste to fill their orders. It was the most
enjoyable little lunch Lloyd could remember. Phil, who somehow naturally
assumed the part of host, had never been so entertaining. Time slipped
by so fast while they laughed and talked that the hour was finished
before they realized that it had fairly begun.

Then Phil, putting Lloyd's camera on an opposite table, and focussing it
on the group, showed the waiter how to snap the spring, and hurried back
to his chair to be included in the picture which they all wanted as a
souvenir of the day's excursion.

They made arrangements for the rest of the afternoon after that. Jack
was to take the camera to a photographer's and leave it for the roll of
films to be developed, and then go to a shoestore and the grocery. Phil
had an errand to attend to for Mrs. Lee and a few purchases to make.
Lloyd had a long list of things she hoped to find in the Curio Building.
They agreed to meet at a drug store on that street which had a corner
especially furnished for the comfort of its out-of-town patrons. Besides
numerous easy chairs and tables, where tired customers could be served
at any time from the soda-fountain, there were daily papers to help
pass the time of waiting, and a desk provided with free stationery.

It was just four o'clock when Joyce and Lloyd, coming back to the drug
store with their arms full of packages, found Jack already there waiting
for them. He was weighing himself on the scales near the door.

"I've been knocking around here for the last half-hour," he said. "I'll
go out and look for Phil now, and tell him you are ready, and we'll get
the horses and bring them around."

"How long will it take?" asked Joyce.

"Fifteen or twenty minutes, probably. He's just up the street."

"Then I'll begin a lettah to mothah," said Lloyd, depositing her bundles
on a table, and sitting down at the desk. Joyce picked up an illustrated
paper and settled herself comfortably in a rocking-chair.

The big clock over the soda-fountain slowly dropped its hands down the
dial, but Joyce, absorbed in her reading, and Lloyd in her writing, paid
no attention until half an hour had gone by. Then Lloyd, folding her
letter and slipping it into an envelope, looked up.

"Mercy, Joyce! It's half-past foah! What do you suppose is the mattah?"

Before Joyce could answer, she caught sight of Jack, through the big
show-window, hurrying down the street by himself. He was red in the face
from his rapid walking when he came in, and had a queer expression about
his mouth that he always had when disgusted or out of patience.

"Phil's busy," he announced. "He wants me to ask you if you'd mind
waiting a few minutes longer. He wouldn't ask it, but it's something
quite important."

"We ought to get back as soon as we can," said Joyce, "for I've been
away all day, and there's the ride home still ahead of us. I'm afraid
mamma will start to get supper herself if I'm not there."

"I think I'll put in the time we're waiting in writing to the Walton
girls," said Lloyd, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Joyce
picked up her story again, and Jack went out into the street, where he
stood tapping one heel against the curbstone, and with his hands thrust
into his pockets. Then he walked to the corner and back, and peered in
through the show-window at the clock over the soda-fountain. When he had
repeated the performance several times, Joyce beckoned for him to come
in.

"It's after five o'clock," she said. "It must be very important business
that keeps him so long."

"It is," answered Jack. "I'll go back once more, and if I can't get him
away, I'll go around and get the horses and we'll just ride off and
leave him."

"Can't get him away!" repeated Joyce. "Where is he?"

"Oh, just up the street a little way," said Jack, carelessly, pointing
over his shoulder with his thumb.

Joyce looked at him steadily an instant, then, as if she had read his
mind, said, with startling abruptness: "Jack Ware, you might as well
tell me. Is he doing what Mr. Ellestad says all the boys out here do
sooner or later, getting mixed up in some of those gambling games?"

There was no evading Joyce when she spoke in that tone. Jack had learned
that long ago. But, with a glance toward Lloyd, who sat with her back
toward them, he only nodded his reply. Startled by the question, Lloyd
turned just in time to see the nod.

"I didn't intend to tell on him," blurted Jack, "but you surprised it
out of me. He put some money on a roulette wheel, and lost all the first
part of the afternoon. Now his luck has begun to change, and he says
he's got to stick by it till he makes back at least a part of what he
started with."

Joyce looked up at the clock. "We ought to be going," she said, drumming
nervously on the arm of her chair with her fingers. Then she hesitated,
a look of sisterly concern on her face. "I hate, though, to go off and
leave him there. No telling when he'll come home if he feels he is free
to stay as long as he pleases. Goodness, Jack! I'm glad it isn't you.
I'd be having a fit if it were, and I can't help thinking how poor Elsie
would feel if she knew it. Lloyd, what do you think we ought to do?"

"I think we ought to go straight off and leave him!" she answered,
hotly. "It's perfectly horrid of him to so fah fo'get himself as a
gentleman as to pay no attention to his promises. He made a positive
engagement with us to meet us heah at foah o'clock, and now it's aftah
five. I nevah had a boy treat me that way befoah, and I must say I
haven't much use for one that will act so."

Presently, after some slight discussion, the girls slowly gathered up
the bundles and walked up the street to the corral. Jack hurried on
ahead, so that by the time they reached it, the men there had the ponies
saddled and were waiting to help them mount and tie on the packages by
the many leather thongs which fringed the saddles for that purpose.

It was a quiet ride homeward. A cloud seemed to have settled over their
gay spirits. Nobody laughed, nobody spoke much. The story of Alaka was
still fresh in each mind, and what Mrs. Lee had said about the curse of
the West, and the fate of the men she had known who had become possessed
by the same fever.

They remembered how Jo had come in at daylight, red-eyed and sullen,
after his night's losses, for the lucky feeling which seized him at the
sight of his cut fingers had been a mistaken omen of success. All that
he had saved in months of service had vanished before sunrise in the
same way that Alaka's turquoises and shells and eyes had gone.

Deeper than the indignation in Lloyd's heart, deeper than her sense of
wounded pride that Phil should have been so indifferent about keeping
his engagement to meet them, was a sore feeling of disappointment in
him. He had seemed so strong and manly that she had thought him above
the weakness of yielding to such temptations.

She recalled the expression of his face the night before when he drew
back from the firelight into the shadow, and pulled his hat over his
eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story of Alaka. Evidently he had played
Alaka's game before.

Ah, that night before! How the whole moonlighted scene rolled back over
her memory, as she rode along now, slightly in advance of Joyce and
Jack. Phil had been with her that night before, and, as the sweet
strains of the Bedouin love-song floated out on the stillness of the
desert, something had stirred in her girlish heart as she looked up at
him. A vague wonder if it were possible that in years to come this would
prove to be the one the stars had destined for her. And, as if in answer
to her unspoken wonder, his voice had joined in, higher and sweeter than
all the others, as he smiled down into her eyes. But now--there was a
little twinge of pain when she thought that he wasn't a prince at all
when measured by the yard-stick of old Hildgardmar and her father, much
less the one written in the stars for her. He wasn't strong, and he
wasn't honourable if he gambled, and she told herself that she was glad
that she knew it. And now that she had found out how much she had been
mistaken in him, she didn't care any more for his friendship, and that
she never intended to have anything more to do with him.

A dozen times on the way home Joyce said to herself: "Oh, what if it had
been Jack!" And, thinking of Elsie and the father so far away across the
seas, she wished that she could do something to get him away from the
surroundings that were sure to work to his undoing if he persisted in
staying there.

Supper was ready when they reached home. Afterward there were all
Lloyd's purchases to be unwrapped and admired. Mary had hoped for a
candy-pull, as it was Saturday, and they had not had one during Lloyd's
visit; but the girls were too tired after so many miles in the saddle,
and by nine o'clock all lights were out and a deep quiet reigned over
Ware's Wigwam and the tents.

The moonlight flooding the white canvas kept Lloyd awake for awhile. As
she lay there, listening to the distant barking of coyotes, and going
over the events of the day, she heard the approaching sound of hoof
beats. Some lonely horseman was coming down the desert road. She raised
herself on her elbow to listen, recognizing the sound. It was Phil's
horse clattering over the little bridge. But it paused under the
pepper-trees.

"I suppose Phil has come up to apologize," she said to herself, "but he
might as well save himself the trouble. No explanation could evah
explain away the fact that he was rude to us and that he _gambled_. I
could forgive the first, but I nevah can forgive being so disappointed
in him."

A moment later, seeing no light, and evidently concluding that his visit
was untimely, he turned and rode back toward the ranch. Lloyd, still
leaning on her elbow, strained her ears to listen till the last footfall
died away in the distance.

"He'll be back in the mawning," she thought, as she laid her head on the
pillow. "He always comes Sunday mawnings; but he'll not find us this
time, because we'll be gone befoah he gets heah."

Joyce had arranged to keep Bogus part of the next day, so that they
could ride into Phoenix to church. So it happened that when Phil came up
next morning, it was to find nobody but Mary in sight. Mrs. Ware had
gone to the seat under the willows to read to Norman and Holland.

The beehive had been brought over during Joyce's absence the day before,
and placed in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree where the hammock
swung, and Mary was swinging in the hammock now, with a book in her lap.
It was closed over one finger to keep the place, for she was listening
to the droning of the bees, breathing in the sweetness that floated in
across the desert from its acres of vivid bloom, and paying more
attention to the sunny, vibrant world about her than to the hymn she was
learning.

"What are you doing, Mary?" he called, as his step on the bridge made
her look around. She held up a battered old volume of poems, and moved
over in the hammock to make room for him beside her.

"I'm learning a hymn. That's the way we always earned our missionary
money back in Kansas. I'm going to Sunday school with Hazel and George
this afternoon in the surrey over to the schoolhouse. Her uncle has one
there. I didn't have any pennies to take, so mamma said I could begin
learning hymns again, as I used to do back home."

As usual Mary rattled on, scarcely pausing to take breath or give her
listener a chance to make reply.

"This isn't one of the singing hymns, the kind they have in church. It's
by Isaac Watts. I like it because it's about bees, and it's so easy to
say:

    "How doth the little busy bee
       Improve each shining hour,
     And gather honey all the day
       From every opening flower.'

"Joyce picked it out for me, and said that she guessed that Isaac Watts
must have gone to the School of the Bees himself, and that was where he
learned that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' The
bees hate idle hands, you know, that's the drones, and, although they
are patient with them longer than you'd suppose they'd be, it always
ends in their stinging the drones to death.

"And Lloyd said it was a pity that some other people she knew not a
thousand miles away couldn't go to school to the bees and learn that
about Satan's finding mischief for idle hands to do.

"And Joyce said yes, it was, for it was too bad for such a fine fellow
to get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition to
make anything of himself. And I asked them who they meant, but they just
laughed at each other and wouldn't tell me. I don't see why big girls
always want to be so mysterious about things and act as if they had
secrets. Do you?"

"No, indeed!" answered Phil, in his most sympathetic manner. He stooped
and picked a long blade of grass at his feet.

"And Joyce said that if Alaka had gone to school to the bees, he
wouldn't have lost his eyes, and Lloyd said that if somebody kept on,
he would lose at least his turquoises. When I asked her what she meant,
she said, oh, she was just thinking of what Mr. Ellestad told at the
picnic, that the Indians thought the turquoises were their most precious
stones because they stole their colour from the sky, and she called
turquoise the friendship stone because it was true blue."

Phil began whistling softly, as he pulled the blade of grass back and
forth between his fingers.

"So they think that somebody is like Alaka, do they?" he asked,
presently, "in danger of losing his turquoises, his friendship stones.
Well, I can imagine instances when that would be as bad for Alaka as
losing his eyes."

Phil had walked up to the Wigwam more buoyantly than usual that morning.
He knew that he owed the girls an apology for not meeting them as he had
promised, and he was prepared to make it so penitently and gracefully
that he was sure that they would accept his excuses without a question.
The big roll of bills in his pocket, which he had won by a lucky turn of
the wheel, did not lie heavy on his conscience at all. It rather added
to his buoyance of spirit, for it was so large that it would enable him
to do several things he had long wished to do. Because of it, too, he
had come up to plan another picnic, this time an excursion to Paradise
Valley on the other side of Camelback.

But Mary's report of the conversation which had puzzled her gave him an
uncomfortable feeling. He could not fail to understand its meaning.
Evidently the girls knew what had detained him in town and were
displeased with him.

"Oh, aren't you going to stay for dinner?" asked Mary, as he slowly rose
and stretched himself. "It's Sunday, you know, and we always expect you
on Sunday."

"No, thank you," he answered, yawning. "I've changed my programme
to-day."

"Aren't you coming back this afternoon?" she asked, anxiously. "They'll
all be home then."

He studied the distant buttes a moment before he answered, then squared
back his shoulders in a decided way, settling his hat firmly on his
head.

"No," he answered, finally, "I promised a fellow I met in town at the
hotel the other day that I'd ride over and see him soon. He has a camp
over on the other side of Hole-in-the-Rock, with an old duffer that's
out here for rheumatism. I took a fancy to the fellow the minute I saw
him, and it turns out that he's the cousin of a boy I knew at military
school. It's funny the way you run across people that way out here."

One of Phil's greatest charms to Mary was the deferential way he had of
talking to her as if she were his age, and taking the trouble to explain
his actions. Now, as he turned away, with a pleasant good morning, it
was with as polite a lifting of his hat as if she had been nineteen
instead of nine.

She watched him swing down the road with his quick, military step, never
dreaming in her unsuspecting little heart that _he_ was the mysterious
person who, the girls wished, could learn about Satan and the work he
finds for idle hands. Nor did she dream that the words she had so
innocently repeated were still sounding in his ears: "If somebody keeps
on, he'll at least lose his turquoises. It's the friendship stone--true
blue!"




CHAPTER XV.

LOST ON THE DESERT


IF Washington had not lost a shoe on the way home from church, and if
Joyce had not been seized with a violent headache that sent her to bed
with a bandage over her eyes, the day would have ended far differently
for Lloyd.

The afternoon went by quickly, for, lulled by the drowsy hum of the
bees, she had fallen asleep in the hammock under the umbrella-tree, and
slept a long time. Then supper was earlier than usual, as Jack wanted
his before starting to the ranch. Chris, the Mexican, was taking a
holiday, and had offered Jack a quarter to do the milking for him that
evening. Holland strolled down the road with him, since the lost
horseshoe prevented him taking the ride he had expected to enjoy.

Scarcely were they out of sight when an old buggy rattled up from the
other direction, bringing a woman and her two little girls from a
neighbouring ranch for an evening visit. Lloyd, who was on her way to
the tent to see if she could do anything for Joyce's comfort, heard a
voice which she recognized as Mrs. Shaw's, as the woman introduced
herself to Mrs. Ware.

"I've been planning to get over here ever since you came," she began,
"and specially since I got acquainted with your daughter over them bees,
but 'pears like there's nothing in life on week-days but work; so this
evening, when my little girls begged to come over and see your little
girl, says I to myself, it's now or never, and I just hitched up and
came."

"Oh, deah!" sighed Lloyd. "I don't want to spend the whole evening
listening to that tiahsome woman. The boys are gone, and Joyce's head
aches too bad for her to talk. I don't know what to do."

She stepped softly into the tent, insisting on rubbing Joyce's head, or
doing something to make her more comfortable, but Joyce sent her away,
saying that the pain was growing less, and that she didn't want her to
stay shut up in the tent that smelled so strongly of the camphor she had
spilled.

Lloyd turned away and wandered down to the pasture bars, where she stood
looking over toward the west. The sun was dropping out of sight. For
the first time since she had come to the Wigwam she felt lonesome. She
was so full of life after her long sleep, so fresh and wide-awake, that
she looked around her restlessly, wishing that something exciting would
happen. She was in the mood to enjoy an adventure of some kind, no
matter what.

While she stood there, her pony, who had often been coaxed up to the
bars for sugar, now came up through curiosity, evidently wondering at
her silence. "Come on, old boy," she said, reaching through the bars to
grasp the rope that trailed from his neck. "You've settled it. We'll go
off and have a ride togethah."

With some difficulty, she saddled him herself, and then because she did
not want to disturb Joyce by going back to the tent to change her white
dress for her divided skirt, she mounted as if the cross-saddle were a
side-saddle, and rode slowly out of the yard bareheaded.

Mrs. Ware fluttered her handkerchief in response to the wave of Lloyd's
hand, and looked after her as she took the road to the ranch. "She's
going to see Mrs. Lee," she thought, and then turned her attention to
her talkative visitor.

It was merely from force of habit that Lloyd had taken the ranch road.
She was in sight of the camp before she became aware of where the pony
was carrying her.

Then she turned abruptly, hardly knowing why she did so. Phil was at the
ranch. She would not have him think that she had gone down with the hope
of seeing him. She did not put the thought into words, but that is what
influenced her to turn. In front of her Camelback Mountain loomed up,
looking larger and more lifelike than usual, with the reflected light of
the sunset lying rosy red on its summit. She knew that there is
something extremely deceptive in the clear Arizona atmosphere, and had
been told that the distance to the mountain was over five miles. But it
was hard to believe. It looked so near that she was sure that she could
reach it in a few minutes' brisk ride,--that she could easily go that
far and back before daylight was entirely gone.

An old game that she had played at the Cuckoos' Nest sent a verse
floating idly through her memory:

    "How many miles to Barley-bright?"
         "_Three score and ten!_"
    "Can I get there by candle light?"
         "_Yes, if your legs are long and light--
          There and back again!_
     _Look out! The witches will catch you!_"

With somewhat of the same eerie feeling that had affected her when she
joined in the game with Betty and the little Appletons, she turned the
pony into the narrow trail that led across the sand in and out among the
sage-brush. Later, those same gray bushes might look startlingly like
witches reaching up out of the gloaming.

"It's a good thing that yoah legs _are_ long and light," she said to the
pony, as he started off with a long, rabbit-like lope. "And it's a good
thing that you seem as much at home heah as Br'er Rabbit was in the
brush-pile when Br'er Fox threw him in for stealing his buttah. I'm glad
it isn't old Tar Baby that I'm on. He wouldn't be used to these gophah
holes, and would stumble into the first one we came to. Oh, this is
glorious!"

She shook back her hair as the soft, orange-perfumed breeze blew it
about her face. Her full white sleeves fluttered out from her arms.
Again she had that delightful sense of birdlike motion, of free, wild
swinging through space. On and on they went, never noticing how far they
had travelled or how dark it was growing, till suddenly she saw that she
was not on any trail. A thick growth of stubby mesquit bushes made
almost a thicket in front of her. An enormous cactus, thirty feet high,
stood in her way like one of the Barley-bright witches. From its thorny
trunk stretched two great arms, thrown up as if to ward off her coming.
Its resemblance to a human figure was uncanny, and she stood staring at
it with a fascinated gaze.

"It's big enough to be the camel-drivah of the camel in the mountain,"
she said in a half-whisper to the pony. Then looking on toward the
mountain, she realized that she had to strain her eyes to see it through
the rapidly gathering gloom. Night had fallen suddenly, and the mountain
seemed farther away than when she started.

"Oh, it will be black night befoah we get home," she thought, turning in
nervous haste. Then a new trouble confronted her. She was facing a dim,
trackless wilderness, and she did not know how to get home. She had kept
the mountain steadily in view as she rode toward it, but now she
realized that it was so large that she could easily do that, and still
at the same time go far out of her course.

"You'll have to find the way home," she said, helplessly, to the pony,
failing to remember that the Wigwam pasture had been his home for only a
few weeks, and that, left to himself, he would go directly to his native
ranch.

[Illustration: "CLATTERING DOWN THE ROAD AS FAST AS HIS FEET COULD CARRY
HIM"]

In a few minutes Lloyd found herself carried along a narrow road, not
more than a wagon track. While she knew that she had never been over it
before, it was some comfort to find that she was on a human
thoroughfare, and not lost among the tracks of wandering coyotes and
jack-rabbits.

The pony, feeling that he was headed toward his own home, went willingly
enough, and Lloyd began to enjoy her adventure.

"How exciting it will sound back in that tame little Valley," she
thought, "lost in the desert! I'll give the girls such a thrilling
description of it that they'll feel cold chills running up and down
their spines. It's a wondah that the cold chills don't run up and down
me! But I'm not one bit afraid now. This road is bound to lead to
somebody's house, and everybody is so friendly out heah in the West that
whoevah finds me will take me home."

The pony swung along a few rods farther, then, startled by an owl rising
suddenly out of the wayside bushes with a heavy flopping of wings,
jumped sideways with such a start that Lloyd was almost thrown from her
seat. It was an insecure one at best, and she was about to throw her
foot over into the other stirrup when a forward plunge sent the pony
into a gopher hole, and Lloyd over his head.

When she picked herself up from the road and looked dizzily around, she
gave a little gasp of horror. The pony, freed of his burden and spurred
on by his fright, was clattering down the road as fast as his feet could
carry him, and she was left helpless in what seemed to her the very
heart of the great, desolate desert. She stood motionless till the last
faint thud of the pony's hoofs died away down the road. Then she looked
around her and shivered. The possibility of the pony's not going
straight to the Wigwam had not yet occurred to her, but she felt that
under any circumstances she was doomed to stay in the desert until
morning. They would be badly frightened at the Wigwam, and would rouse
the ranch to send out a searching-party, but they might as well look for
a needle in a haystack as to make an attempt to find her in the
darkness. She did not know where she was herself. She was within a
stone's throw of one of the buttes, out which one she could not tell.
She stood peering around her through the twilight with eager, dilated
eyes. A twig crackled near her, trampled underfoot by some little wild
creature as startled as she. The desert had seemed so still before, but
now it was full of strange whisperings and rustlings. Remembering what
Jack had told her when he showed her the nest shared by snakes and owls,
she dared not sit down for fear some snake should come crawling out of
the hole from which the owl had flown. She felt that it would be useless
to walk on, since every step might be carrying her farther away from the
Wigwam.

How long she stood there in the road she could not tell, but presently
it seemed to her that it was growing lighter. She could see the outlines
of the butte more distinctly, and the sky behind it was growing
gradually luminous. Then she remembered that the moon would be up in a
little while, and her courage came back as she stood and waited. When
its round, familiar face came peeping up over the horizon, she felt as
if an old friend were smiling at her.

"I'm neahly as glad to see you as if you were one of the family," she
said, aloud, with a little sob in her throat. The feeling that this was
the same moon that had looked down on her through the locusts, all her
life, and had even peeped through the windows and seen Mom Beck rocking
her to sleep in her baby days, gave her a sense of companionship that
was wonderfully comforting.

It was tiresome standing in the road, and, as she dared not sit down and
risk finding snakes, she decided to climb up the side of the butte and
look out over the country. Maybe she might see the light from some ranch
house. At least on its rocky slope she would be freer from snakes than
down among the bushes and the owls' nests.

Scrambling over a ledge of rock she stumbled upon a pile of tin cans and
broken bottles, which told of many past picnic parties near that spot. A
little higher up she clasped her hands with a cry of pleased
recognition. She was at the beginning of the great hole that led through
the rock. Only two nights before she had sat on that very boulder, and
speared olives out of a bottle with a hat-pin. There were their own
sardine cans, and the fragments of the teacup Hazel had dropped. A mound
of ashes and some charred sticks marked the spot where the camp-fire had
blazed.

She looked around, wondering if by some happy chance Jo could have left
any matches. A brilliant idea had come to her of lighting a bonfire. She
knew that it could be seen from the ranch, and would draw attention to
her at once. A long search failed to show any stray matches, and she
wondered if she could find flint among the rocks, or how long it would
take to get fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Some of the gruesome tales of Apache warfare that had been told around
the fire came back to her as she stood looking at the ashes, but she
resolutely turned her thoughts away from them, to the Indian school she
had seen the day before. It was wonderfully comforting to think of that
little Indian girl at the piano, patiently practising her five-finger
exercises, and of the Indian boy in the brass-buttoned uniform ploughing
in the fields. It made them seem so civilized and tame. The time of
tomahawks and tortures was long past, she assured herself, and there was
not nearly so much to fear from the peaceful Pimas and Maricopas as
there was sometimes from the negroes at home.

So, quieting herself with such assurances, she climbed up to a
comfortable seat on a rock, where she could lean back against the
cavelike wall, and sat looking out through the great hole, as the moon
rose higher and higher in the heavens. Half an hour slipped by in
intense silence. Then her heart gave a thump of terror, so loud that she
heard the beating distinctly. There was a fierce, hot roaring in her
ears.

Down at the foot of the butte, going swiftly along with moccasined
tread, was a stalwart Indian. Not one of the peaceful Pimas she had been
accustomed to seeing, but a cruel-mouthed, eagle-eyed Apache. At least
he looked like the pictures she had seen of Apaches.

He had a lariat in his hand, and he stooped several times to examine the
tracks ahead of him, as if following a trail. Instantly there flashed
into Lloyd's mind what Mrs. Lee had told them about the Indians allowing
their ponies to run loose on the desert. Sometimes the settlers'
children used to catch them, and keep them all day to ride. But woe be
it, she said, if the owner tracked his pony to a settler's house before
it was turned loose. He always took his revenge. Lloyd was sure that
this was what the Indian was after, as she noticed the lariat, and the
way his keen eyes followed the trail. She almost held her breath as she
waited for him to pass on. But he did not pass.

Throwing up his head he looked all around, and then, leaving the trail,
started swiftly up the butte toward her. Almost frozen with fear, Lloyd
drew back into the shadow, and, rolling over the ledge, drew herself
into as small a space as possible, crouching down to hide her white
dress. Through a crevice between the rocks she watched his approach with
wide, terrified gaze, sure that some savage instinct, like a
bloodhound's sense of smell, had warned him of her presence.

For an instant, as he reached the remains of the camp-fire, he stood
motionless, looking out across the country, silhouetted darkly against
the sky, like the head on the leather cushion she was taking home to her
grandfather, she thought, or rather that she had intended to take. Maybe
she would never live to see her home again.

She crouched still closer against the rock, rigid, tense, scarcely
breathing. With a grunt the Indian stooped, and began poking around
among the scraps left by the picnickers. He turned the blackened brands
with his foot, then moved farther along, attracted by the gleam of a bit
of broken bottle. Evidently the coyotes had been there before him, for
not a scrap was left of sandwiches or chicken bones; but, like the
coyotes, he knew from past experiences that it was profitable to prowl
where picnics were almost weekly occurrences.

The gleam of something steely and bright caught his eye. Lloyd saw the
object flash in the moonlight as he picked it up. It was the
carving-knife Jo had dropped in his excitement, when he found the "lucky
cuts" on his forefingers. With another grunt he turned it this way and
that, examined the handle and tried the edge, and then looked stealthily
around. Lloyd closed her eyes lest the very intensity of their gaze
should draw him to her hiding-place. She knew that another step or two
would bring him to higher ground, where he could look over the ledge and
see her.

How she ever lived through the moments that followed, she never knew. It
seemed to her that her heart had stopped beating, and she was growing
clammy and faint. It could not have been more than a few minutes, but it
seemed hours to her, when, the suspense growing unbearable, she opened
her eyes, and peered fearfully through the crack again.

He had disappeared. Trembling so that she could scarcely stand, she
ventured, little by little, to raise herself until she could look over
the rock. Then she saw him moving leisurely down the path at the foot of
the butte. In a moment more he had reached the road, and, striding
along, he grew smaller and smaller to her sight till he disappeared
among the dark patches of sage-brush.

Lloyd sank limply down among the rocks again, so exhausted by the
nervous strain that the tears began to come. The night was passing like
a hideous dream. Half an hour went by. She could hear the distant
barking of coyotes, and a nervous dread took possession of her, a fear
that their long, gaunt forms might come sneaking up the path after
awhile in search of other picnic leavings. She eyed the swaying shadows
apprehensively.

Presently, as she sat and watched, tense and alert, she saw some one
coming along the wagon track far below. He was on horseback, and riding
slowly, as if enjoying the calm beauty of the night. She could hear him
whistling. As he reached the foot of the butte the whistling changed to
singing. The full, strong voice that rang out on the deathlike stillness
was wonderfully rich and sweet:

    "From the desert I come to thee!"

It was the Bedouin song. Lloyd listened wonderingly, her lips half-open.
Was this part of the dream? she asked herself. Part of the strange,
unreal night? That was certainly Phil's voice, and yet it was past
belief that he should be riding by this out-of-the-way place at such an
hour of the night. But there was no mistaking the voice, nor the song
that had been haunting her memory for the last two days:

    "Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old."

Lloyd hesitated no longer. Scrambling up from the rocks, she went
running down the steep path, calling at the top of her voice, "Phil! Oh,
Phil! Wait!"

It was Phil's turn to think he was dreaming. Flying down the path with
her white dress fluttering behind her in the moonlight, and her long,
fair hair streaming loosely over her shoulder, Lloyd looked more
wraithlike than human, and to be confronted by such a figure in the
heart of a lonely desert was such a surprise that Phil could scarcely
believe that he saw aright.

A moment more, and with both her cold, trembling little hands in his big
warm ones, Lloyd was sobbing out the story of her fright. The reaction
was so great when she found herself in his protecting presence, that she
could not keep back the tears.

He swung her up into his saddle in the same brotherly way he had lifted
Mary into the cart, the day he found her running home from school, and
proceeded to comfort her in the same joking fashion.

"This is the second time that I have been called on to play the bold
rescuer act. I'll begin to think soon that my mission in life is to
snatch fair maidens from the bloody scalpers of the plains." Then more
gently, as he saw how hard it was for her to control herself, he spoke
as he often spoke to Mary:

"There, never mind, Lloyd. Don't cry. It's all right, little girl. We'll
soon be home. It's only a few miles from here. It isn't as late as you
think--only half-past eight."

Slipping his watch back into his pocket, he began to explain how he
happened to be passing. He had stayed to supper at the camp where he had
gone to call on his new acquaintance, and had purposely waited for the
moon to come up before starting home.

He had put the rein into her hands at first, but now, taking it himself,
he walked along beside her, leading the horse slowly homeward. With the
greatest tact, feeling that Lloyd would gain her self-possession sooner
if he did not talk to her, he began to sing again, half to himself, as
if unmindful of her presence, and of the little dabs she was making at
her eyes with a wet handkerchief.

"Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea." It was the song that his old English
nurse had sung:

          "Kling! lang! ling!
    She hears her bonny bride-bells ring."

When he had sung it through, Lloyd's handkerchief was no longer making
hasty passes at her eyes.

"I wonder what my little sister Elsie is doing to-night," he said. "That
song always makes me think of her."

"Tell me about her," said Lloyd, who wanted a little more time to regain
her composure. He understood why she asked, and began to talk, simply to
divert her mind from her recent fright. But presently her eager
questions showed that she was interested, and he talked on, feeling that
it was good to have such an appreciative listener. He began to enjoy the
reminiscences himself, and as he talked, the old days seemed to draw
very near, till they gave him a homesick feeling for the old place that
would never welcome him again. It had gone to strangers, he told her,
and Aunt Patricia was dead.

"Poor old Aunt Patricia," he added, after laughing over one of the
pranks they had played on her. "She never did understand boys. We tried
her patience terribly. She did the best she could for us, but I've
often thought how different it would have been if my mother had lived. I
had a letter from Daddy to-day, in answer to the one I wrote about
leaving school. It broke me all up. Made me think of the time when I was
a little fellow, and he rocked me to sleep one night when I had been
naughty, and explained why I ought to be a good boy. It almost made me
wish I could be a little kid again, and curl up in his arms, and tell
him I was sorry, and would turn over a new leaf."

Lloyd liked the affectionate, almost wistful way in which he spoke of
his father as Daddy. Whatever indignation she had felt toward him was
wiped away by those confidences. And when he apologized presently, in
his most winning way, for not keeping his engagement, and told her
frankly what had prevented, she liked him better than she had done
before. She wondered how it could be so, but she felt now that she knew
him as well as Malcolm or Rob, and that their friendship was not the
growth of a few weeks, but that it reached back to the very beginning of
things.

"You can't imagine what a fascination there is in seeing that roulette
wheel whirl around," he said, "but I'm done with that now. Daddy's
letter settled the question. And even if that hadn't come, I would have
stopped. I don't want to lose my precious turquoises--my friendship
stones," he added, meaningly. "I know how you and Joyce feel about it.
Look at old Alaka's eyes, twinkling up there over Camelback. They seem
to know that I have heeded their warning."

Presently, as they went along, he glanced up at her with a smile. "Do
you know," he said, "you look just as you did the first time I saw you,
as you rode up to the gate at Locust, all in white, and on a black
horse. Maybe having your hair hanging loose as you did then makes me
think so. I never imagined then that I'd ever see you again, much less
find you away out here on the desert."

"It is queah," answered Lloyd. "I thought I must be dreaming when I
heard you sing 'From the desert I come to thee.'"

"And I certainly thought I was dreaming," answered Phil, "when, in
answer to my call, you appeared all in white. You could have knocked me
down with a feather, for an instant. I was startled. Then I thanked my
lucky stars that led me your way."

He began again humming the Bedouin song. Lloyd, looking out across the
wide, moonlighted desert and up at the twinkling stars, wondered if it
was fate that had brought him to her rescue; if it could be possible
that through him was to come the happiness written for her in the stars.

"There's the Wigwam light," said Phil, presently, pausing in his song to
point it out to her. "We're almost there. I'll never forget this
adventure--till--" He took up the refrain again, smiling into her eyes
as he hummed it. The refrain that was to ring through Lloyd's memory for
many a year to come, whenever she thought of this ride across the
moonlighted desert:

    "_Till the sun grows cold,
     And the stars are old,
     And the leaves of the Judgment
         Book unfold!_"




CHAPTER XVI.

BACK TO DIXIE


THERE was another mark on the kitchen calendar now; not a red star,
betokening some happy event to come, but a deep black border, drawn all
around the date on which Lloyd's visit was to end. The heavy black lines
marked the time as only a few days distant.

It was Saturday again, a week after the excursion to the Indian school.
Joyce had gone down to the ranch, for Mr. Armond to criticize the
drawings which she had made since the last lesson, and Lloyd, on the
seat under the willows, was waiting for Phil. He was to come at four,
and ride over to one of the neighbouring orange groves with her.

She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading. She was listening
to the water gurgle through the little water-gate into the lateral, and
thinking of all that had happened during her visit, especially since
the night she was lost on the desert, and Phil had found her.

Monday he had spent the entire day at the Wigwam, and, since Joyce had
forbidden him to come near the spot where the washing was in progress,
he and Lloyd had brought a jar of paste and the little wicker table down
to this very seat under the willows, and had mounted all her photographs
in the book she had bought for the purpose. There were over a hundred,
beginning with a view of the Wigwam and ending with the four laughing
faces around the table on the balcony of Coffee Al's restaurant. There
was Lloyd on her pony, coming back from the duck hunt, and again in the
act of dropping her cherry tart. There was Mary in the hammock watching
the bees, Jack in his irrigating boots, and Holland on a burro. There
were a dozen different pictures of Joyce, and family groups, and picnic
groups, in which was represented every acquaintance Lloyd had made in
Arizona. Turning the pages was like living over the pleasant days again,
for they brought the scenes vividly before her.

When the last picture was mounted, Phil proposed that they write an
appropriate quotation under each one. So they spent another hour over
that, Phil suggesting most of them, and at Lloyd's request writing the
inscriptions himself in his strong, dashing hand. Some of his apt
phrases and clever parodies seemed really brilliant to Lloyd, and they
had laughed and joked over them in a way that had ripened their
friendship as weeks of ordinary intercourse would not have done.

"Do you know," he said, when the last inscription was written, "I've
kept count, and I'm in twenty-five of these pictures. You won't have
much chance to forget me, will you? I haven't put my collection in a
book, but I have a better reminder of this last month than all these put
together."

Opening the little locket that hung from his watch-fob, he held it
toward her, just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of her own face
within it. Then, closing the locket with a snap, he put the fob back in
its place. It was a picture he had taken of her one day as she sat on
this same seat under the willows, watching Aunt Emily braid an Indian
basket. He had cut out a tiny circle containing her head, from the rest
of the group, just the size to fit in the locket.

Lloyd, leaning forward unsuspectingly to look at it, was so surprised at
seeing her own picture that a deep blush stole slowly over her face,
and she drew back in confusion, not knowing what to say. If he had
asked her permission to put her picture in his locket, she would have
refused as decidedly as she had refused Malcolm the tip of a curl to
carry in his watch.

But Phil had not asked for anything; had not said a word to which she
could reply as she had replied to Malcolm. He had showed her the locket
in the same matter-of-course way that Rob had showed her the four-leafed
clover which he carried. Yet deep down in her heart she knew that there
was a difference. She knew that her father would not like Phil to have
her picture in his locket, but she didn't know how to tell him so.

It was only an instant that she sat in shy, embarrassed silence, with
her heart in a flutter, and her eyes fastened on the book of photographs
which she was fingering nervously. Then Jack came out with a pitcher of
lemonade, and the opportunity to speak passed. She hadn't the courage to
bring up the subject afterward.

"Phil might think that I think that it means moah than it does," she
told herself. "He weahs the pictuah just as he would Elsie's, and if I
tell him that I don't want him to, he'll think that I think that he
cares for me the way that Malcolm does. I don't suppose that it really
makes any difference whethah he has it in his locket or not."

He did not mention it again, but it did make a difference. The
consciousness of it embarrassed her whenever she met his eyes. She
wondered if Joyce noticed.

Tuesday he came again, and read aloud all morning while they ironed.
Wednesday he spent the day without bringing anything as an excuse.
Thursday he rode with them over to the Indian reservation. Her pony had
been brought back to her the day after it ran away. When he left them at
the Wigwam that evening he said that he would not be back the next day
as he had to go to Phoenix, but that he would be up Saturday afternoon
to ride with Lloyd to the orange grove while Joyce took her
drawing-lesson.

It was of all this that Lloyd was thinking now, as she sat under the
willows. And she was thinking, too, of the tale Mrs. Walton told her of
The Three Weavers; the tale that had been the cause of the Shadow Club
turning itself into the Order of Hildegarde.

Mrs. Walton had spoken truly when she said that "Little girls begin very
early sometimes to dream about that far-away land of Romance." Lloyd's
dreams might not have begun so soon, perhaps, had it not been for the
meetings of the Shadow Club at boarding-school, when Ida Shane fired
their imaginations with the stories of "Daisy Dale" and "The Heiress of
Dorn," and made Lloyd the bearer of her letters to her "Edwardo." The
unhappy ending of Ida's romance had been a grave warning to Lloyd, and
the story of Hildegarde in the Three Weavers was often in her thoughts.
Part of it floated through her memory now, as she realized, with a
start, how large a place Phil had occupied in her thoughts the last
week.

"Hildegarde worked on, true to her promise, but there came a time when a
face shone across her mirror, so noble and fair that she started back in
a flutter. 'Oh, surely, 'tis he!' she whispered to her father. 'His eyes
are so blue they fill all my dreams!' But old Hildgardmar answered her,
'Does he measure up to the standard set by the sterling yardstick for a
prince to be?'"

"That is just what Papa Jack would ask," mused Lloyd. "And he'd say that
little girls outgrow their ideals as they do their dresses, and that if
I'm not careful that I'll make the same mistake that Hertha and Huberta
did. Besides, there's my New Yeah's promise!"

For a moment she ceased to hear the gurgle of the water, and heard
instead the ticking of the clock in the long drawing-room at Locust, as
she and Papa Jack kept watch beside the embers, waiting for the old year
to die and the new one to dawn. And in the solemn hush she heard her own
voice repeating Hildegarde's promise:

"_You may trust me, fathah, I will not cut the golden warp from out the
loom until I, a woman grown, have woven such a web as thou thyself shalt
say is worthy of a prince's wearing!_"

A woman grown! And she was not yet quite fourteen!

"I'll not be the only one of all the Lloyds that can't be trusted to
keep a promise," she said, aloud, with a proud lifting of the head.
Resolutely shaking herself free from the day-dreaming that had been so
pleasant, she picked up her book and started to the house.

Listening to Aunt Emily's conversation over her stocking darning, about
the commonplace happenings of the household, was not half so
entertaining as letting her thoughts stray back to the moonlight ride,
to the smile in Phil's eyes as he showed her the locket, or the sound of
his voice as he sang, "From the desert I come to thee." There were a
dozen such memories, so pleasant to dwell upon that a girl of less
will-power would not have pushed them aside. Even Lloyd found it
difficult to do.

"It's like trying to drive away a flock of cherry birds," she thought.
"They keep coming back no matter how often you say _shoo_! But I won't
let them stay."

Such a resolution was easier to make than to keep, especially as she was
expecting to see Phil ride up to the door at any moment. But the time
set for his coming passed, and when a step on the bridge made her glance
up, it was Joyce she saw, walking along slowly. Usually she danced in
after her lesson-hour with Mr. Armond in the gayest of spirits. To-day
it was apparent that she was the bearer of bad news.

"Oh, mamma!" she began, dropping her sketches on the table, and fumbling
to find her hat-pin. "They're all so worried down at the ranch, over
Phil! Mrs. Lee says he went to town yesterday morning, expecting to be
back in time for dinner, but he hasn't come yet. Jo went in on his
wheel, last night, and he saw him at one of those places where they play
faro, and all those games, and he was so excited over his winnings that
he didn't even see Jo, although he stood and watched him ever so long.
This morning Mr. Ellestad went in, and he came across him, wandering
about the streets. He had lost not only every cent he had deposited in
the bank, but he put up his horse, and lost that, too. He didn't have
any way to get out to the ranch.

"He wouldn't drive out with Mr. Ellestad. He was so mortified and
disgusted with himself that he said he couldn't face them all. He said
his father would never trust him again, and that he had lost not only
his father's confidence, but our respect and friendship. He said he was
going to look for work of some kind, he didn't care what, and it didn't
make any difference what became of him now.

"Mr. Ellestad left him at a hotel, and he felt so sorry for him that,
tired as he was, he rode over to Tempe, after he got home, to see a
friend of his who is a civil engineer. This friend is going to start on
an expedition next week, surveying for some canals. Mr. Ellestad
persuaded him to take Phil in his party, and give him some work. Phil
said he didn't intend to touch a cent of his usual monthly allowance
until he had earned back all he lost. Mr. Ellestad telephoned to him
from Tempe, and he is to start in a few days. Mrs. Lee says that losing
everything is the best thing that could have happened to Phil. It's
taught him a lesson he'll never forget; and this surveyor is just the
sort of a man he ought to be with,--clean, and honourable, and strong."

As Joyce finished her excited telling with these familiar words, the
colour that had faded completely out of Lloyd's face rushed back again.
"Clean, and honourable, and strong!" These were the standards of the
yardstick that Papa Jack had given her. How far Phil had failed to
measure up to the last two notches, and yet--

Mrs. Ware finished the unspoken sentence for her.

"He is so young that I can't help feeling that, with something to keep
him busy and some one to take a helpful interest in him, he will turn
out all right. He has so many fine traits, I am sure they will prevail
in the end, and that he will make a manly man, after all."

Joyce openly wiped away the tears that came at the thought of this
ending to their happy comradeship, but Lloyd stole away to the tent to
hide her face in her pillow, and sob out the disappointment of her sore
little heart. She would never see him again, she told herself, and they
had had _such_ good times together, and she was so sorry that he had
proved so weak.

Presently, as she lay there, she heard Holland come clattering up on
the pony, inquiring for her. He had killed a snake, she could hear him
telling his mother, and had brought it home to skin for Lloyd. It was a
beautifully marked diamond-back with ten rattles, and now she could have
a purse and a hat-band, like some she had admired in Phoenix.

Lloyd listened, languidly. "An hour ago," she thought, "I would have
been out there the instant I heard him call. I would have been admiring
the snake and thanking him for it and asking a hundred questions about
how he got it. But now--somehow--everything seems so different."

She started up as he began calling her. "I wish he'd let me alone," she
exclaimed, impatiently. "Aunt Emily will think it strange if I don't
answer, for she knows I'm out heah, but I don't feel like talking to
anybody or taking an interest in anything, and I don't want to go out
there!"

The call came again. She drew back the tent-flap and looked out. "I'll
be there in a minute, Holland," she answered, trying to keep the
impatience out of her voice. As she went over to the wash-stand to bathe
her eyes, she brushed a magazine from the table in passing. It was the
one Phil had brought up several days before to read aloud. She replaced
it carefully, almost as one touches the belongings of some one who is
dead.

There were so many things around the tent to remind her of him, it would
be almost impossible to keep him out of her thoughts. She confessed to
herself that it was growing very hard to keep her Hildegarde promise.
She started to whisper it as one might repeat some strengthening charm:
"You may trust me, fathah--" She stopped with a sob. This sudden ending
of their happy companionship was going to shadow all the rest of her
visit.

As her eyes met her reflection in the little mirror hanging against the
side of the tent, she lifted her head with determination, and looked at
it squarely.

"I _will_ stop thinking about it all the time!" she said, defiantly, to
the answering eyes. "It will spoil all my visit if I don't. I'll do the
way the bees do when things get into the hive that have no right there.
I'll seal it up tight as I can, and go on filling the other cells with
honey,--doing things that will be pleasant to remember by and by. I'll
_make_ myself take an interest in something else!"

The same spirit that looked from the eyes of the proud old portraits at
home looked back at her now from the eyes in the mirror--that strong,
indomitable spirit of her ancestors, that could rise even to the
conquering of that hardest of all enemies, self, when occasion demanded
it.

Running out to the wood-pile, where Holland impatiently awaited her, she
threw herself into the interests of the hour so resolutely that she was
soon absorbed in its happenings. By the time the snake was skinned, and
the skin tacked to the side of the house to dry, she had gained a
victory that left her stronger for all her life to come. She had
compelled herself to take an interest in the affairs of others, when she
wanted to mope and dream. Instead of an hour of selfish musing in her
tent, she had had an hour of wholesome laughter and chatter outside. It
would be a pleasant time to look back upon, too, she thought,
complacently, remembering Mary's amusing efforts to help skin the snake,
and all the funny things that had been said.

"Well, that hour's memory-cell is filled all right," Lloyd thought.
"I'll see how much moah honey I can store away befoah I leave."

There was not much more time, for Mr. Sherman came soon, with the
announcement that they would leave in two days. Numerous letters had
passed between the Wigwam and the mines, so Lloyd knew what was going
to happen when her father arranged for her and Joyce to spend part of
one of those days in town. She knew that when they came back they would
find a long rustic arbour built in the rear of the tents--a rough shack
of cottonwood poles supporting a thatch of bamboo and palm-leaves.
Underneath would be a dozen or more hives, humming with thousands of
golden-banded bees. And for all the rest of their little lives these
bees would spend their "shining hours" in helping Joyce on toward easier
times and the City of her Desire.

Something else happened that day while they were in town. Phil made his
last visit before starting away with the surveying party. Nobody knew
what passed between him and Aunt Emily in the old Wigwam sitting-room,
but he came out from the interview smiling, so full of hope and purpose
that her whispered _Godspeed_ seemed already to have found an answer.

She told the girls afterward a little of their conversation. His
ambition was aroused at last, she said. He was going to work hard all
summer, and in the fall go back to school. Not the military academy, but
a college where he could take the technical course this friend of Mr.
Ellestad recommended. Phil admired this man immensely, and she was sure
that his influence would be exceedingly helpful. She was sure, too, that
he would be all right now, and he had promised to write to her every
week.

As Phil came out of the Wigwam he heard Mary's voice, in a sort of happy
little chant, as she watched the settling of the bees in their new home.
She had heard nothing of Phil's troubles, and did not know that he was
going away until he told her.

"I want you to tell Lloyd and Joyce something for me," he said.

"Try to remember just these words, please. Tell them that I said: 'Alaka
has lost his precious turquoises, but _he will win them back again, some
day_!' Can you remember to say just that?"

Mary nodded, gravely. "Yes," she said, "I'll tell them." Then her lip
trembled. "But I don't want you to go away!" she exclaimed, the tears
beginning to come. "Aren't you ever coming back?"

"Not for a long time," he answered, looking away toward old Camelback.
"Not till I've learned the lesson that you told me about, the first time
I saw you, that day on the train, to be inflexible. When I'm strong
enough to keep stiff in the face of any temptation, then I'll come back.
Good-bye, little Vicar!"

Stooping, he kissed her gently on each plump cheek, and turned hastily
away. She watched him go off down the road through a blur of tears. Then
she rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. He had turned to look back, and,
seeing the disconsolate little figure gazing after him, waved his hat.
There was something so cheery and hopeful in the swing he gave it, that
Mary smiled through her tears, and answered with an energetic fluttering
of her white sunbonnet, swung high by its one string.

       *       *       *       *       *

Joyce's delight on her return, when she found the long row of hives, was
something good to see. She could hardly speak at first, and walked from
one hive to another, touching each as she passed, as if to assure
herself that it was really there, and really hers.

"Joyce is so bee-wildered by her good fortune that she is almost
bee-side herself," said Holland, when he had watched her start on her
third round of inspection.

"That's the truth," laughed Joyce, turning to face Lloyd and her father.
"I'm so happy that I don't know what I'm doing, and I can't begin to
thank you properly till I've settled down a little."

There was no need of spoken thanks when her face was so eloquent. Even
the mistakes she made in setting the supper-table spoke for her. In her
excitement she gave Mr. Sherman two forks and no knife, and Lloyd three
spoons and no fork. She made the coffee in the teapot, and put the
butter in a pickle-dish. Only Mary's warning cry saved her from skimming
the cream into the syrup-pitcher, and she sugared everything she cooked
instead of salting it.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she cried, when her mistakes were discovered, "but if
you were as happy as I am you'd go around with your head in the clouds
too."

After supper she said to Mr. Sherman, as they walked out to the hives
again, "You see, I'd been thinking all day how much I am going to miss
Lloyd, and what a Road of the Loving Heart she's left behind her on this
visit. We've enjoyed every minute of it, and we'll talk of the things
she's said and done for months. Then I came home to find that she's left
not only a road behind her, but one that will reach through all the
years ahead, a road that will lead straight through to what I have set
my heart on doing. I'm going into bee culture with all my might and
main, now, and make a fortune out of it. There'll be time enough after
that to carry out my other plans.

"To think," she added, as Lloyd joined them, "when I first came to the
Wigwam I was so lonesome and discontented that I wanted to die. Now I
wouldn't change places with any other girl in the universe."

"Not even with me?" cried Lloyd, in surprise, thinking of all she had
and all that she had done.

"No, not even with you," answered Joyce, quoting, softly, "For me the
desert holds more than kings' houses could offer."

The last two days of Lloyd's visit went by in a whirl. As she drove away
with her father, in the open carriage that had been sent out of town for
them, she stood up to look back and wave her handkerchief to the little
group under the pepper-trees, as long as the Wigwam was in sight. Then
she kept turning to look back at old Camelback Mountain, until it, too,
faded from sight in the fading day. Then she settled down beside her
father, and looked up at him with a satisfied smile.

"Somehow I feel as if my visit is ending like the good old
fairy-tales--'They all lived happily evah aftah.' Joyce is _so_ happy
ovah the bees and Mr. Armond's lessons. Aunt Emily is lots bettah, the
boys have so much to hope for since you promised to help Holland get
into the Navy, and make a place for Jack at the mines. As for Mary, she
is so blissful ovah the prospect of a visit to Locust next yeah, that
she can't talk of anything else."

"And what about my little Hildegarde?" asked Mr. Sherman. "Did the visit
do anything for her?"

"Yes," said Lloyd, growing grave as the name Hildegarde recalled the
promise that had been so hard to keep, and the victory she had won over
herself the day she turned away from her day-dreams and her
disappointment to interest herself in other things. She felt that the
bees had shown her a road to happiness that would lead her out of many a
trouble in the years to come. She had only to follow their example, seal
up whatever had no right in her life's hive, or whatever was spoiling
her happiness, and fill the days with other interests.

"Oh, I'm lots wiseah than when I came," she said, aloud. "I've learned
to make pies and coffee, and to i'on, and to weave Indian baskets."

"Is that the height of your ambition?" was the teasing reply. "You don't
soar as high as Joyce and Betty."

"Oh, Papa Jack, I know you'll be disappointed in me, but, honestly, I
can't help it! I haven't any big ambitions. Seems to me I'd be contented
always, just to be you'ah deah little daughtah, and not do any moah than
just gathah up each day's honey as it comes and lay up a hive full of
sweet memories for myself and othah people."

"That suits me exactly," he answered, with an approving nod. "Contented
people are the most comfortable sort to live with, and such an ambition
as yours will do more good in your little corner of the world than all
the books you could write or pictures you could paint."

The engine was steaming on the track when they drove up to the station.
Waffles, the coloured man whom Mr. Robeson had brought with him as cook,
hung over the railing of the rear platform, whistling "Going Back to
Dixie."

"How good that sounds!" exclaimed Lloyd, as her father helped her up the
steps. "Now that we are really headed for home, I can hardly wait to get
back to the Valley and tell mothah and Betty about my visit. I don't
believe anybody in the whole world has as many good times to remembah as
I have. Or as many good times to look forward to," she added, later,
when, with a mighty snorting and puffing, the engine steamed slowly out
of the station, and started on its long homeward journey.

As they rumbled on, she began picturing her arrival, the welcome at the
station, and her meeting with her mother and Betty and the Walton girls.
How much she had to tell them all, and how many delightful meetings she
would have with the club! Her birthday was only two months away. Then
the locusts would be white with bloom, and after that vacation. With the
coming of summer-time to the Valley would come Rob to measure with her
at the measuring-tree, to play tennis, and to share whatever the long
summer days held in store.

With a vague sense that all sorts of pleasantness awaited her there, her
thoughts turned eagerly toward Kentucky. Even the car-wheels seemed to
creak in pleased anticipation, and keep time to the tune she hummed half
under her breath:

    "My heart turns back to Dixie,
       And I--must--go!"

THE END.




BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE


    THE LITTLE COLONEL BOOKS
    (Trade Mark)

_By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_

    Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative, per vol.      $1.50


    =The Little Colonel Stories.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated.

Being three "Little Colonel" stories in the Cosy Corner Series, "The
Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights of Kentucky," and "The Giant
Scissors," put into a single volume.


    =The Little Colonel's House Party.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by Louis Meynell.


    =The Little Colonel's Holidays.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman.


    =The Little Colonel's Hero.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by E. B. Barry.


    =The Little Colonel at Boarding School.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by E. B. Barry.


    =The Little Colonel in Arizona.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by E. B. Barry.


    =The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by E. B. Barry.


    =The Little Colonel, Maid of Honour.=
                        (Trade Mark)

Illustrated by E. B. Barry.


    =The Little Colonel.=
    (Trade Mark)

    =Two Little Knights of Kentucky.=

    =The Giant Scissors.=

    =Big Brother.=


Special Holiday Editions

Each one volume, cloth decorative, small quarto, $1.25.

New plates, handsomely illustrated, with eight full-page drawings in
color.

"The books are as satisfactory to the small girls, who find them
adorable, as for the mothers and librarians, who delight in their
influence."--_Christian Register._

    These four volumes, boxed as a four volume set      $5.00


      =In the Desert of Waiting=: THE LEGEND OF CAMELBACK
      MOUNTAIN.


      =The Three Weavers=: A FAIRY TALE FOR FATHERS AND
      MOTHERS AS WELL AS FOR THEIR DAUGHTERS.


      =Keeping Tryst.=


      =The Legend of the Bleeding Heart.=

    Each one volume, tall 16mo, cloth decorative      $0.50
    Paper boards                                        .35

There has been a constant demand for publication in separate form of
these four stories, which were originally included in four of the
"Little Colonel" books.


      =Joel: A Boy of Galilee.= By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON.
      Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman.

    New illustrated edition, uniform with the Little Colonel
         Books, 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative          $1.50

A story of the time of Christ, which is one of the author's best-known
books.


      =Asa Holmes=; OR, AT THE CROSS-ROADS. A sketch of
      Country Life and Country Humor. By ANNIE FELLOWS
      JOHNSTON. With a frontispiece by Ernest Fosbery.

    Large 16mo, cloth, gilt top      $1.00

"'Asa Holmes; or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most
sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long
while."--_Boston Times._


      =The Rival Campers=; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF HENRY
      BURNS. By RUEL PERLEY SMITH.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

Here is a book which will grip and enthuse every boy reader. It is the
story of a party of typical American lads, courageous, alert, and
athletic, who spend a summer camping on an island off the Maine coast.

"The best boys' book since 'Tom Sawyer.'"--_San Francisco Examiner._


      =The Rival Campers Afloat=; OR, THE PRIZE YACHT
      VIKING. By RUEL PERLEY SMITH.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

This book is a continuation of the adventures of "The Rival Campers" on
their prize yacht _Viking_. An accidental collision results in a series
of exciting adventures, culminating in a mysterious chase, the loss of
their prize yacht, and its recapture by means of their old yacht,
_Surprise_.


      =The Rival Campers Ashore.= By RUEL PERLEY SMITH,
      author of "The Rival Campers," "The Rival Campers
      Afloat," etc.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

"The Rival Campers Ashore" deals with the adventures of the campers and
their friends in and around the town of Benton. Mr. Smith introduces a
new character,--a girl,--who shows them the way to an old mill, around
which the mystery of the story revolves. The girl is an admirable
acquisition, proving as daring and resourceful as the campers
themselves.


      =The Young Section-Hand=; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF ALLAN
      WEST. By BURTON E. STEVENSON, author of "The Marathon
      Mystery," etc.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by L. J. Bridgman  $1.50

Mr. Stevenson's hero is a manly lad of sixteen, who is given a chance as
a section-hand on a big Western railroad, and whose experiences are as
real as they are thrilling.


      =The Young Train Dispatcher.= By BURTON E. STEVENSON,
      author of "The Young Section-hand," etc.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

The young hero has many chances to prove his manliness and courage in
the exciting adventures which befall him in the discharge of his duty.


      =Captain Jack Lorimer.= By WINN STANDISH.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by A. B. Shute    $1.50

Jack is a fine example of the all-around American high-school boy. He
has the sturdy qualities boys admire, and his fondness for clean, honest
sport of all kinds will strike a chord of sympathy among athletic
youths.


      =Jack Lorimer's Champions=; or, Sports on Land and
      Lake. By WINN STANDISH, author of "Captain Jack
      Lorimer," etc.

    Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

All boys and girls who take an interest in school athletics will wish to
read of the exploits of the Millvale High School students, under the
leadership of Captain Jack Lorimer.

Captain Jack's Champions play quite as good ball as do some of the teams
on the large leagues, and they put all opponents to good hard work in
other summer sports.

Jack Lorimer and his friends stand out as the finest examples of
all-round American high school boys and girls.


      =Beautiful Joe's Paradise=; OR, THE ISLAND OF
      BROTHERLY LOVE. A sequel to "Beautiful Joe." By
      MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe."

    One vol., library 12mo, cloth, illustrated      $1.50

"This book revives the spirit of 'Beautiful Joe' capitally. It is fairly
riotous with fun, and as a whole is about as unusual as anything in the
animal book line that has seen the light. It is a book for
juveniles--old and young."--_Philadelphia Item._


      ='Tilda Jane.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS.

    One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative,      $1.50

"It is one of those exquisitely simple and truthful books that win and
charm the reader, and I did not put it down until I had finished
it--honest! And I am sure that every one, young or old, who reads will
be proud and happy to make the acquaintance of the delicious waif.

      "I cannot think of any better book for children than
      this. I commend it unreservedly."--_Cyrus Townsend
      Brady._


      =The Story of the Graveleys.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS,
      author of "Beautiful Joe's Paradise," "'Tilda Jane,"
      etc.

    Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by E. B. Barry   $1.50

Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a
delightful New England family, of whose devotion and sturdiness it will
do the reader good to hear.


      =Born to the Blue.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.

    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.25

The atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on every page of this
delightful tale. The boy is the son of a captain of U. S. cavalry
stationed at a frontier post in the days when our regulars earned the
gratitude of a nation.


      =In West Point Gray.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.

    12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.25

West Point forms the background for the second volume in this series,
and gives us the adventures of Jack as a cadet. Here the training of his
childhood days in the frontier army post stands him in good stead; and
he quickly becomes the central figure of the West Point life.


      =The Sandman; His Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J.
      HOPKINS. With fifty illustrations by Ada Clendenin
      Williamson.

    Large 12mo, decorative cover      $1.50

"An amusing, original book, written for the benefit of very small
children. It should be one of the most popular of the year's books for
reading to small children."--_Buffalo Express._


      =The Sandman: More Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J.
      HOPKINS.

    Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated      $1.50

Mr. Hopkins's first essay at bedtime stories met with such approval that
this second book of "Sandman" tales was issued for scores of eager
children. Life on the farm, and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his
inimitable manner.


      =The Sandman: His Ship Stories.= By WILLIAM J.
      HOPKINS, author of "The Sandman: His Farm Stories,"
      etc.

    Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated      $1.50

"Mothers and fathers and kind elder sisters who put the little ones to
bed, and rack their brains for stories, will find this book a
treasure."--_Cleveland Leader._

      "Children call for these stories over and over
      again."--_Chicago Evening Post._


      =Pussy-Cat Town.= By MARION AMES TAGGART.

    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated
       in colors                                               $1.00

"Pussy-Cat Town" is a most unusual delightful cat story. Ban-Ban, a pure
Maltese who belonged to Rob, Kiku-san, Lois's beautiful snow white pet,
and their neighbors Bedelia the tortoise-shell, Madame Laura the widow,
Wutz Butz the warrior, and wise old Tommy Traddles, were really and
truly cats.


      =The Roses of Saint Elizabeth.= By JANE SCOTT
      WOODRUFF, author of "The Little Christmas Shoe."

    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
        colors by Adelaide Everhart                               $1.00

This is a charming little story of a child whose father was caretaker of
the great castle of the Wartburg, where Saint Elizabeth once had her
home.


      =Gabriel and the Hour Book.= By EVALEEN STEIN.

    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
           colors by Adelaide Everhart                            $1.00

Gabriel was a loving, patient, little French lad, who assisted the monks
in the long ago days, when all the books were written and illuminated by
hand, in the monasteries.


      =The Enchanted Automobile.= Translated from the French
      by MARY J. SAFFORD.

    Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
          colors by Edna M. Sawyer                                $1.00

The enchanted automobile was sent by the fairy godmother of a lazy,
discontented little prince and princess to take them to fairyland, where
they might visit their storybook favorites.


      =The Red Feathers.= By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of
      "Brothers of Peril," etc.

    Cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

"The Red Feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an Indian boy
who lived in the Stone Age, many years ago, when the world was young,
and when fairies and magicians did wonderful things for their friends
and enemies.


      =The Wreck of the Ocean Queen.= By JAMES OTIS, author
      of "Larry Hudson's Ambition," etc.

    Cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.50

This story takes its readers on a sea voyage around the world; gives
them a trip on a treasure ship; an exciting experience in a terrific
gale; and finally a shipwreck, with a mutineering crew determined to
take the treasure to complicate matters.

But only the mutineers will come to serious harm, and after the reader
has known the thrilling excitement of lack of food and water, of attacks
by night and day, and of a hand-to-hand fight, he is rescued and brought
safely home again,--to realize that it's only a story, but a stirring
and realistic one.


      =Little White Indians.= By FANNIE E. OSTRANDER.

    Cloth decorative, illustrated      $1.25

The "Little White Indians" were two families of children who "played
Indian" all one long summer vacation. They built wigwams and made camps;
they went hunting and fought fierce battles on the war-trail.

A bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the
"make-believe" instinct in children, and will give them a healthy,
active interest in "the simple life."




PHYLLIS' FIELD FRIENDS SERIES

_By LENORE E. MULETS_


Six vols., cloth decorative, illustrated by Sophie Schneider. Sold
separately, or as a set.

    Per volume       $1.00
    Per set           6.00

    =Insect Stories.=
    =Stories of Little Animals.=
    =Flower Stories.=
    =Bird Stories.=
    =Tree Stories.=
    =Stories of Little Fishes.=

In this series of six little Nature books, it is the author's intention
so to present to the child reader the facts about each particular
flower, insect, bird, or animal, in story form, as to make delightful
reading. Classical legends, myths, poems, and songs are so introduced as
to correlate fully with these lessons, to which the excellent
illustrations are no little help.




THE WOODRANGER TALES

_By G. WALDO BROWNE_


    =The Woodranger.=
    =The Young Gunbearer.=
    =The Hero of the Hills.=
    =With Rogers' Rangers.=

    Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, decorative cover,
         illustrated, per volume                        $1.25
    Four vols., boxed, per set                           5.00

"The Woodranger Tales," like the "Pathfinder Tales" of J. Fenimore
Cooper, combine historical information relating to early pioneer days in
America with interesting adventures in the backwoods. Although the same
characters are continued throughout the series, each book is complete in
itself, and, while based strictly on historical facts, is an interesting
and exciting tale of adventure.




THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES


The most delightful and interesting accounts possible of child life in
other lands, filled with quaint sayings, doings, and adventures.

Each one vol., 12mo, decorative cover, cloth, with six or more full-page
illustrations in color.

    Price per volume      $0.60

_By MARY HAZELTON WADE_ (_unless otherwise indicated_)

    =Our Little African Cousin=
    =Our Little Alaskan Cousin=      By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
    =Our Little Arabian Cousin=      By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little Armenian Cousin=
    =Our Little Brown Cousin=
    =Our Little Canadian Cousin=     By Elizabeth R. Macdonald
    =Our Little Chinese Cousin=      By Isaac Taylor Headland
    =Our Little Cuban Cousin=
    =Our Little Dutch Cousin=        By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little English Cousin=      By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
    =Our Little French Cousin=       By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little German Cousin=
    =Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
    =Our Little Hindu Cousin=        By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little Indian Cousin=
    =Our Little Irish Cousin=
    =Our Little Italian Cousin=
    =Our Little Japanese Cousin=
    =Our Little Jewish Cousin=
    =Our Little Korean Cousin=       By H. Lee M. Pike
    =Our Little Mexican Cousin=      By Edward C. Butler
    =Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
    =Our Little Panama Cousin=       By H. Lee M. Pike
    =Our Little Philippine Cousin=
    =Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
    =Our Little Russian Cousin=
    =Our Little Scotch Cousin=       By Blanche McManus
    =Our Little Siamese Cousin=
    =Our Little Spanish Cousin=      By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
    =Our Little Swedish Cousin=      By Claire M. Coburn
    =Our Little Swiss Cousin=
    =Our Little Turkish Cousin=




COSY CORNER SERIES


      It is the intention of the publishers that this series
      shall contain only the very highest and purest
      literature,--stories that shall not only appeal to the
      children themselves, but be appreciated by all those
      who feel with them in their joys and sorrows.

      The numerous illustrations in each book are by
      well-known artists, and each volume has a separate
      attractive cover design.

    Each 1 vol., 16mo, cloth      $0.50




_By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON_

=The Little Colonel.= (Trade Mark.)


The scene of this story is laid in Kentucky. Its heroine is a small
girl, who is known as the Little Colonel, on account of her fancied
resemblance to an old-school Southern gentleman, whose fine estate and
old family are famous in the region.


      =The Giant Scissors.=

This is the story of Joyce and of her adventures in France. Joyce is a
great friend of the Little Colonel, and in later volumes shares with her
the delightful experiences of the "House Party" and the "Holidays."


      =Two Little Knights of Kentucky.= WHO WERE THE LITTLE
      COLONEL'S NEIGHBORS.

In this volume the Little Colonel returns to us like an old friend, but
with added grace and charm. She is not, however, the central figure of
the story, that place being taken by the "two little knights."


      =Mildred's Inheritance.=

A delightful little story of a lonely English girl who comes to America
and is befriended by a sympathetic American family who are attracted by
her beautiful speaking voice. By means of this one gift she is enabled
to help a school-girl who has temporarily lost the use of her eyes, and
thus finally her life becomes a busy, happy one.


      =Cicely and Other Stories for Girls.=

The readers of Mrs. Johnston's charming juveniles will be glad to learn
of the issue of this volume for young people.


      =Aunt 'Liza's Hero and Other Stories.=

A collection of six bright little stories, which will appeal to all boys
and most girls.


      =Big Brother.=

A story of two boys. The devotion and care of Steven, himself a small
boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale.


      =Ole Mammy's Torment.=

"Ole Mammy's Torment" has been fitly called "a classic of Southern
life." It relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells
how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right.


      =The Story of Dago.=

In this story Mrs. Johnston relates the story of Dago, a pet monkey,
owned jointly by two brothers. Dago tells his own story, and the account
of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing.


      =The Quilt That Jack Built.=

A pleasant little story of a boy's labor of love, and how it changed the
course of his life many years after it was accomplished.


      =Flip's Islands of Providence.=

A story of a boy's life battle, his early defeat, and his final triumph,
well worth the reading.



_By EDITH ROBINSON_


      =A Little Puritan's First Christmas.=

A Story of Colonial times in Boston, telling how Christmas was invented
by Betty Sewall, a typical child of the Puritans, aided by her brother
Sam.


      =A Little Daughter of Liberty.=

The author introduces this story as follows:

"One ride is memorable in the early history of the American Revolution,
the well-known ride of Paul Revere. Equally deserving of commendation is
another ride,--the ride of Anthony Severn,--which was no less historic
in its action or memorable in its consequences."


      =A Loyal Little Maid.=

A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, in which the
child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders important services to George
Washington.


      =A Little Puritan Rebel.=

This is an historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the
gallant Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts.


      =A Little Puritan Pioneer.=

The scene of this story is laid in the Puritan settlement at
Charlestown.


      =A Little Puritan Bound Girl.=

A story of Boston in Puritan days, which is of great interest to
youthful readers.


      =A Little Puritan Cavalier.=

The story of a "Little Puritan Cavalier" who tried with all his boyish
enthusiasm to emulate the spirit and ideals of the dead Crusaders.


      =A Puritan Knight Errant.=

The story tells of a young lad in Colonial times who endeavored to carry
out the high ideals of the knights of olden days.




_By OUIDA_ (_Louise de la Ramee_)


      =A Dog of Flanders=: A CHRISTMAS STORY.

Too well and favorably known to require description.


      =The Nurnberg Stove.=

This beautiful story has never before been published at a popular price.




_By FRANCES MARGARET FOX_


      =The Little Giant's Neighbours.=

A charming nature story of a "little giant" whose neighbours were the
creatures of the field and garden.


      =Farmer Brown and the Birds.=

A little story which teaches children that the birds are man's best
friends.


      =Betty of Old Mackinaw.=

A charming story of child-life, appealing especially to the little
readers who like stories of "real people."


      =Brother Billy.=

The story of Betty's brother, and some further adventures of Betty
herself.


      =Mother Nature's Little Ones.=

Curious little sketches describing the early lifetime, or "childhood,"
of the little creatures out-of-doors.


      =How Christmas Came to the Mulvaneys.=

A bright, lifelike little story of a family of poor children, with an
unlimited capacity for fun and mischief. The wonderful never-to-be
forgotten Christmas that came to them is the climax of a series of
exciting incidents.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes:

Varied hyphenation was retained as in yardstick and yard-stick.

Page 138, "kneeding" changed to "kneading" (and began kneading)

Page 321, the author of The Wreck of the Ocean Queen was not
small-capped in the original. This was fixed in this copy.





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Annie Fellows Johnston

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