"A TALL, SLENDER GIRL ... APPEARED AT A CAR DOOR""A TALL, SLENDER GIRL . . . APPEARED AT A CAR DOOR"
A prolonged bell-clanging and the rumble of an approaching train prevented Harold's reply, and sent the girls into a flutter of excitement. A momentlater they stood in line, waiting, breathless with suspense.
They made a wonderfully pretty picture. Each girl was in white, even to her shoes and stockings. Around each waist was a sash of a handsome shade of blue. The same color showed at the throat and on the hair.
Quietly they watched the train roll into the station, and still quietly they stood until a tall, slender girl with merry brown eyes and soft fluffy brown hair appeared at a car door and tripped lightly down the steps to the platform. They waited only till she ran toward them; then in gleeful chorus they chanted:
"Texas, Texas, Tex—Tex—Texas!Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah!GENEVIEVE!"
What happened next was a surprise. Genevieve did not laugh, nor cry out, nor clap her hands. Her eyes did not dance. She stopped and fumbled with the fastening of her suit-case. The next minute the train drew out of the station, and the girls were left alone in their corner. Genevieve looked up, at that, and came swiftly toward them.
They saw then: the brown eyes were full of tears.
The girls had intended to repeat their Texas yell; but with one accord now they cried out in dismay:
"Genevieve! Why, Genevieve, you're—crying!"
"I know I am, and I could shake myself," choked Genevieve, hugging each girl in turn spasmodically.
"But, Genevieve, what is the matter?" appealed Cordelia.
"I don't know, I don't know—and that's what's the trouble," wailed Genevieve. "I don't know why I'm crying when I'm so g-glad to see you. But I reckon 'twas that—'Texas'!"
"But we thought you'd like that," argued Elsie.
"I did—I do," stammered Genevieve, incoherently; "and it made me cry to think I did—I mean, to think I do—so much!"
"Well, we're glad you did, or do, anyhow," laughed Harold Day, holding out his hand. "And we're glad you're back again. I've got Jerry here and the cart. This your bag?"
"Yes, right here; and thank you, Harold," she smiled a little mistily. "And girls, you're lovely—just lovely; and I don't know why I'm crying. But you're to come over—straight over to the house this very afternoon. I want to hear that 'T-Texas' again. I want to hear it six times running!" she finished, as she sprang lightly into the cart.
On the way with Harold, she grew more calm.
"You see, once, last fall, I said I hated Sunbridge, and that I wouldn't stay," she explained a little shame-facedly.
"You said you hated it!" cried Harold. "You never told me that. Why, I thought you liked it here."
"I do, now, and I did—very soon, specially after I'd met some one I could talk Texas to all I wanted to—you, you know! I reckon I never told you, but you were a regular safety valve for me in those days."
"Was I?" laughed the lad.
"Yes, even from that first day," nodded Genevieve, with a half-wistful smile. "Did I ever tell you the reason, the real reason, why Aunt Julia called you into the yard that afternoon?"
"Why, no—not that I know of." Harold's face showed a puzzled frown.
"Well, 'twas this. I'd been here a week, and I was so homesick and lonesome for father and the ranch and all. I was threatening to go back. I declared I'd walk back, if there was no other way. Poor Aunt Julia! She tried everything. Specially she tried to have me meet some nice girls, but I just wouldn't. I said I didn't want any girls that weren't Texas girls. I didn't want anything that wasn't Texas. That's what I'd been saying that very day out under the trees there, when Aunt Julia looked toward the street, saw you, and called you into the yard."
"Isthatwhy she introduced me as the boy who was born in Texas?" laughed Harold.
"Yes; and you know how I began to talk Texas right away."
"But I couldn't help much—I left there when I was a baby."
"I know, but you'd been there," laughed Genevieve, "and that helped. Then, through you, I met your cousin Alma, and the rest was easy, for I always had you for that safety valve, to talk Texas to. You see, it was just that I got homesick. All my life I'd lived on the ranch, and things here were so different. I didn't like to—to mind Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Jane, very well, I suspect. You see, at the ranch I'd always had my own way, and—I liked it."
"Well, I'm sure that's natural," nodded Harold.
"I know; but I wasn't nice about it," returned the girl, wistfully. "Father said I must do everything—everything they said. And I tried to. But Miss Jane had such heaps of things for me to do, and such tiresome things, like dusting and practising, and learning to cook and to sew! And it all was specially hard when you remember that I didn't want to come East in the first place. But I love it here, now; you know I do. Every one has been so good to me! Aunt Julia is a dear."
"And—Miss Jane?" queried Harold, eyeing her a little mischievously.
Genevieve blushed.
"Miss Jane? Well, she's 'most a dear, too—sometimes. As for Sunbridge—I love both the East and the West now. Don't you see? But, to-day, coming up from Boston, I got to thinking about it—my dear prairie home; and how I had hated to leave it, and how now I was going back to it with Aunt Julia and the girls all with me. And I was so happy, so wonderfully happy, that a great big something rose within me, and I felt so—so queer, as if I could fly, and fly, andfly!And then, when I saw the girls all dressed alike so prettily, and heard the 'Texas, Texas, Texas'—what did I do? I didn't do anything but cry—cry, Harold, just as if I didn't like things. And the girls were so disappointed, I know they were!"
"Never mind; I guess you can make them understand—anyhow, you have me," said Harold, trying to speak with a lightness that would hide the fact that her words had made him, too, feel "queer." Harold did not enjoy feeling "queer."
A moment later they turned into the broad white driveway that led up to the Kennedy home.
On the veranda of the fine old house stood a sweet-faced, motherly-looking woman with tender eyes and a loving smile. Near her was a taller, younger woman with eyes almost as interested, and a smile almost as cordial.
"You dears—both of you!" cried Genevieve,running up the steps and into the arms of the two women.
"Thank you, Harold," smiled Mrs. Kennedy over Genevieve's bobbing head; "thank you for bringing our little girl home."
"As if I wasn't glad to do it!" laughed the boy, gallantly, as he picked up the reins and sprang into the cart. To the horse he added later, when quite out of earshot of the ladies: "Jerry, I'm thinking Genevieve isn't the only one in that house that has 'improved' since last August. It strikes me that Miss Jane Chick has done a little on her own account. Did you see that smile? That was a really, truly smile, Jerry. Not the 'I-suppose-I-must' kind!"
Genevieve and the two ladies were still on the veranda when the five white-clad girls turned in at the broad front walk.
"We came around this way home," announced Tilly. "Yousaidyou wanted us."
"Want you! Well, I reckon I do," cried Genevieve, springing to her feet. "Come up here this minute! Now say it—say it again—that thing you did at the station. I want Aunt Julia to hear it—and Miss Jane."
The change in Genevieve's voice and manner was unconscious, but it was very evident. No one noticed it apparently, however, but Tilly; and she only puckered her lips into an odd little smile as sheformed in line with the other girls: Tilly was not without some experience herself with Miss Jane and her ways.
"Now, one, two, three, ready!" counted Cordelia, sternly, her face a tragedy of responsibility lest this final triumph of their labors should be anything less than the glorious success the occasion demanded.
Once more five eager, girlish countenances faced squarely front. Once more five fresh young voices chanted with lusty precision:
"Texas, Texas, Tex—Tex—Texas!Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah!GENEVIEVE!"
It was finished. Cordelia, with the expression of one from whom the weight of nations has been lifted, drew a happy sigh, and looked confidently about for her reward. Almost at once, however, her face clouded perplexedly.
Genevieve was dancing lightly on her toes and clapping her hands softly. Mrs. Kennedy was laughing with her handkerchief to her lips. But Miss Jane Chick—Miss Jane Chick was sitting erect, her eyes plainly horrified, her hands clapped to her ears.
"Children, children!" she gasped, as soon as there was a chance for her voice to be heard. "Youdon't mean to say that you didthat—at a public railroad station!"
Cordelia looked distressed. The other girls bit their lips and lifted their chins just a little: they did not like to be called "children."
"But, Miss Chick," stammered Cordelia, "we didn't think—that is, we wanted to do something to welcome Genevieve, and—and—" Cordelia stopped, and swallowed chokingly.
"But to shout like that," protested Miss Chick. "You—young ladies!"
The girls bit their lips still harder and lifted their chins still higher: they were not quite sure whether they more disliked to be "children" or "young ladies"—in that tone of voice.
"Oh, but Miss Jane," argued Genevieve, "you know Sunbridge station is just dead, simply dead at three o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody ever comes on that train, hardly, and there wasn't a soul around but that sleepy Mr. Jones and the station men, and that old Mrs. Palmer. And you knowshewouldn't hear a gun go off right under her nose."
"Genevieve, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Kennedy—but her eyes were twinkling.
Cordelia still looked troubled.
"I know, Genevieve," she frowned anxiously, "but I never thought of it that way—what others would think. Maybe we ought not to have done it, after all. But I'm sure we didn't mean any harm."
Promptly, now, Mrs. Kennedy came to the rescue.
"Of course you did not, dear child," she said, smiling into Cordelia's troubled eyes; "and it was very sweet and lovely of you girls to think of giving Genevieve such a pretty welcome. Oh, of course," she added with a whimsical glance at her sister, "we shouldn't exactly advise you to make a practice of welcoming everybody home in that somewhat startling fashion. That really wouldn't do, you know. Sunbridge station might not be quite so dead next time," she finished, meeting Genevieve's grateful eyes.
"That really was dear of you, Aunt Julia," confided Genevieve some time later, after the girls had gone, and when she and Mrs. Kennedy were alone together. (Miss Jane had gone up-stairs.) "Only think of the pains they took—to get themselves up to look so pretty, besides learning to give that yell so finely. I was so afraid they'd be hurt at what Miss Jane said! And I wouldn't want them hurt—after all that!"
"Of course you wouldn't," smiled Mrs. Kennedy; "and my sister wouldn't either, dear."
Genevieve stirred restlessly.
"I know she wouldn't, Aunt Julia; but—but the girls don't know it. They—they don't understand Miss Jane."
"And do you—always?" The question was gently put, but its meaning was unmistakable.
Genevieve colored.
"Maybe not—quite always; but—Miss Jane is so—so shockable!"
Mrs. Kennedy made a sudden movement. Apparently she only stooped to pick up a small thread from the floor, but when she came upright her face was a deeper red than just that exertion would seem to occasion.
"Genevieve, have you been to your room since you came home?" she asked. There were times when Mrs. Kennedy could change the subject almost as abruptly as could Genevieve herself.
"No, Aunt Julia. You know Nancy carried up my suit-case, and I've been too busy telling you all about my visit to think of anything else."
"Oh," smiled Mrs. Kennedy. "I was just wondering."
Genevieve frowned in puzzled questioning.
"Well, I'm going up right away, anyhow," she said. "Mercy! I reckon I'll go up right now," she added laughingly, springing to her feet as there came through the open window behind her the sound of a clock striking half-past five. "I had no idea it was so late."
Genevieve was not many minutes in her room before she ceased to wonder at Mrs. Kennedy's questioning; for in plain sight on her dressing-tableshe soon found a small white box addressed to Genevieve Hartley. The box, upon being opened, disclosed in a white velvet nest a beautiful little chatelaine watch in dark blue enamel and gold.
"To keep Genevieve's time.With much love fromJane Chick."
read Genevieve on the little card that was with the watch.
"Oh, oh, oh, how lovely!" breathed the girl, hovering over the watch in delight. "And to think what I said!" With a heightened color she turned, tripped across the room and hurried down the hall to Miss Jane's door.
"Miss Jane!"
"Yes, dear."
"May I come in?"
"Yes, indeed."
"I—I want to thank you—oh, I do want to thank you, but I don't know how." Genevieve's eyes were misty.
"For the watch? You like it, then?"
"Like it! I just love it; and I never, never saw such a beauty!"
"I'm glad you like it."
There was a moment's pause. Over by the dressing-table Miss Jane was carefully smoothing a refractory lock of hair into place. She looked socalm, so self-contained, so—far away, thought Genevieve; if it had been Aunt Julia, now!
Suddenly the girl gave a little skipping run and enveloped the lady in two wide-flung young arms, thereby ruffling up more than ever the carefully smoothed lock of hair.
"Miss, Jane, I—I've just got to hug you, anyway!"
"Why, Genevieve, my dear!" murmured Miss Jane, a little dazedly.
From the door Genevieve called back incoherently—the hug had been as short in duration as it had been sudden in action:
"I don't think I can be late now, Miss Jane, ever—with that lovely thing to keep time for me. And I wanted you to know—next year, when I come back, I'm just sure I shall cook and sew beautifully, and do my practising and everything, without once being told. And if I do sprain my ankle I'll be a perfect angel—truly I will. And I won't ever keep folks waiting, either, or—mercy! there's Nancy's first ring now, and I'm not one bit ready!" she broke off, as the musical notes of a Chinese gong sounded from the hall below. The next moment Miss Jane was alone with her thoughts—and with the lock of hair that she was still trying to smooth.
"Dear child!" smiled the lady. Then she turned abruptly and hastened from the room, her hair still unsmoothed. "I'll just tell Nancy to be a littleslow about ringing that second gong," she murmured.
When Genevieve came down-stairs to supper that night, she brought with her two books: one a small paper-covered one, the other a larger one bound in dark red leather.
"Here's the latest 'Pathfinder'—only I call it 'Pathloser,'" she laughed, handing the smaller book to Miss Jane Chick; "and here is—well, just see what is here," she finished impressively, spreading open the leather-covered book before Mrs. Kennedy's eyes.
"'Chronicles of the Hexagon Club,'" read Mrs. Kennedy. "Oh, a journal!" she smiled.
"Yes, Aunt Julia. Isn't it lovely?"
"Indeed it is! Who will keep it?"
"All of us. We are going to take turns. We shall write a day apiece—we six Happy Hexagons of the Hexagon Club."
"Do the girls know about it?" asked Miss Jane.
"Not yet. I just thought of it yesterday when I saw the book in the store. Father bought it for the club—of coursemymoney was gone long ago—at such a time asthis," she explained with laughing emphasis. "I'm going to show the book to the girls to-morrow. Won't they be tickled—I mean pleased," corrected Genevieve, throwing a hasty glance into Miss Jane's smiling eyes.
"I think they will," agreed that lady, pleasantly.
The girls were pleased, indeed, when Genevieve told of her plan and showed the book the next day. But even so entrancing a subject as a journal kept by each in turn could not hold their attention long; for time was very short now, and in every household there were a dozen-and-one last things to be done before the momentous fifth of July. Even the Fourth, with its fun and its firecrackers had no charms for the Happy Hexagons. Of so little consequence did they consider it, indeed, that at last one small boy quite lost his patience.
"You won't fire my crackers, you won't take me to the picnic, you won't play ball, you won't do anything," he complained to his absorbed sister. "I shall be just glad when this old Texas thing is over!"
All the girls' friends came to see them off at the station that fifth of July.
"Mercy! it would never do to spring our Texas yell to-day," chuckled Tilly, eyeing the assembled crowd; "but wouldn't I like to, though!"
"There's nothing dead about Sunbridge now, sure," laughed Genevieve.
"I should say not," declared Harold Day, who had begged the privilege of going to Boston to see them aboard their train for Washington.
"For you see," he had argued, "it's to my state, after all, that you are going, so I ought to be allowed to do the honors at this end of the trip as long as I can't at the other!"
They were off at last, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, the six girls, and Harold. But what a scrambling it was, and what a confusion of chatter, laughter, "good-byes," and "write soons"!
In Boston there was a thirty-minute wait in the South Station before their train was due to leave; but long before the thirty minutes were over, theusually serene face of Mrs. Kennedy began to look flushed and worried.
"Genevieve, my dear," she expostulated at last, "can't you keep those flutterbudget girls somewhere near together? It will be time, soon, to take our train, and only Cordelia is in sight. Not even Harold and your father are here!"
Genevieve laughed soothingly.
"I know, Aunt Julia; but they'll be here, I'm sure. There's still lots of time," she added, glancing proudly at her pretty new watch.
"But where are they all?"
"Tilly and Elsie have gone for some soda water, and Bertha for a sandwich at the lunch counter. She said she just couldn't eat a thing before she left home. Alma Lane has gone to a drug store across the street. I don't know where father and Harold are. They went off together, and—oh, here they are!" she broke off in relief, as the two wanderers appeared.
"And now," summoned Mr. Hartley, "we'll be off to our car! Why, where are the rest of us?"
"Well, they—they aren't all here," frowned Genevieve, a little anxiously.
As at Sunbridge, it was a rush and a scramble at the last. Tilly, Elsie, and Bertha came back, but Genevieve went to look for Alma Lane; and when Alma returned without having seen Genevieve, Harold had to run post-haste for her.
"Sure, dearie," said Mr. Hartley to his daughter, laughingly, when at last he had his charges all in the car, "this is a little worse than trying to corral a bunch of bronchos!"
"Oh, but we won't be so bad again," promised the girl, waving her hand to Harold, who stood alone outside the window, watching them a little wistfully.
They had a merry time getting settled, and more than one tired countenance in the car brightened at sight of the six eager young faces.
"I couldn't get all five sections together," frowned Mr. Hartley. "I got three here, but the other two are down near the end of the car—you know the porter showed you. Do you think we can make them go, some way?" he questioned Mrs. Kennedy, anxiously. "I planned for you to have one of the sections down there by yourself, perhaps, with two of the young ladies in the other. Will that do?"
"Of course it will—and finely, too," declared the lady. "Genevieve, you and I will go down there and take one of the girls with us—perhaps Bertha. That will leave your father for one up here, Elsie and Alma for another, and Tilly and Cordelia for the third."
"I knew she'd put you with Cordelia," chuckled Bertha to Tilly, under cover of their scramble to pick out their suit-cases from the pile in which theporter had left them. "And I'm sure you ought to be," she laughed. "There'll be some hopes then that you'll be kept in order!"
"Just look to yourself," retorted Tilly, serenely. "Mrs. Kennedy putyoudown there nearher—remember that!"
"I declare, I felt just like an orange," giggled Elsie, "with all that talk about 'sections.'"
"I don't see where the shelves are," whispered Cordelia, craning her short little neck to its full extent.
"You'll see them all right," promised Tilly. "Just wait till it's dark, then—'The goblins'll get ye if ye don't watch out!'" she quoted, with mock impressiveness.
"I feel as if I were ten years old, and playing house," chirped Alma Lane, as she happily frowned over just the proper place for her bag.
"I feel as if it were all a dream, and that I shall wake up right at home," breathed Cordelia. "Seems as if it just couldn't be true—that we're really going to Texas! Oh, Genevieve, we can't ever thank you and your father enough," she finished, as Genevieve came up the aisle.
"As if we wanted thanks, after what you've done for me!" cried Genevieve. "Besides, you girls can't be half so glad to go as I am to have you!"
Some time later the porter began to make up the berths.
Tilly nudged Cordelia violently.
"There's shelf number one, Cordy. How do you think you'll like it?" she asked.
Cordelia was too absorbed even to notice the hated "Cordy." With wide-eyed, breathless interest she was watching the porter.
"I think—it's the most wonderful thing—I ever saw," she breathed in an awestruck voice.
It was after the car was quiet that night that Genevieve, in her upper berth, pulled apart the heavy curtains and peeped out into the long narrow aisle between the swaying draperies.
The train was moving very rapidly. The air was heavy and close. The night was an uncomfortably warm one. Genevieve had been too excited to sleep. Even yet it did not seem quite real—that the Happy Hexagons were all there with her, and that they were going to her far-away Texas home.
With a sigh the girl fell back on her pillow, and tried to coax sleep to come to her. But sleep refused to come. Instead, the whole panorama of her Eastern winter unrolled itself before her, peopled with little fairy sprites, who danced with twinkling feet and smiled at her mockingly.
"Oh, yes, I know you," murmured Genevieve, drowsily. "I know you all. You—you little black one—you're the cake I forgot in the oven, and let burn up. And you're the lessons I didn't learn—there are heaps of you! And you—you're thosehorrid scales I never could catch up with. My, how you run now! And you—you little shamed one over in the corner—you're the prank I played on Miss Jane. . . . Oh, you can dance now—but you won't, by and by! Next year there won't be any of you—not a one left. I'm going to be so good, so awfully good; and I'm not going to ever forget, or to cause anybody any trouble, or—"
With a start Genevieve sat erect in her berth, fully awake.
"Mercy! What a jounce that was!" she cried, just above her breath. "But we seem to be going all right now."
Cautiously she parted her curtains and peeped out again. The next instant she almost gave a little shriek: she was looking straight into Bertha Brown's upraised, startled eyes, just below her.
"Was that an accident?" chattered Bertha. "I told you there'd be one! I'm all dressed, anyhow—if 'tis!"
"Sh-h! No, goosey," chuckled Genevieve.
She would have said more but, at that moment, from up the aisle sounded a sibilant "S-s-s-s!" They turned to see a somewhat untidy fluff of red hair above a laughing, piquant face.
"It's Tilly! She's motioning to us. Say, let's go," whispered Genevieve. And cautiously she began to let herself down from her perch.
The next moment Bertha, fully dressed, andGenevieve in her long, dark blue kimono, were tripping softly up the aisle.
"Why, you're both down here," exulted Genevieve, as she climbed into the lower berth.
"Yes; Cordelia was afraid," giggled Tilly, "so I came down."
"Tilly!—I was not," disputed Cordelia, in an indignant whisper. "You came of your own accord."
"Pooh! Tilly's fooling, and we know it," soothed Bertha, climbing into the berth after Genevieve.
"Why, Bertha Brown, you've got your shoes on!" gasped Tilly, forgetting to whisper.
"Of course I have," retorted Bertha. "Do you suppose—sh!"
There was a tug at the curtains, and Elsie Martin's round, good-natured face peered in.
"Well, I like this," she bridled. "A special meeting of the Hexagon Club, and me not notified! I heard Genevieve and Bertha giggling in the aisle. Are you all here?"
"All but Alma," rejoined Tilly, in an exultant whisper. "Say, get her, too!"
"Well, now, if this isn't just a lark," crowed Bertha, gleefully, when the last of the six girls had crowded themselves into the narrow berth.
"Ouch! my head," groaned Genevieve, as a soft thud threw the other girls into stifled laughter.
"Pooh! I've been hitting my head against the up-stairs flat ever since I went to bed," quoth Elsie. "Isn't it fun! Now let's talk."
"What about?"
"Texas, of course," cut in Tilly. "Girls, girls, wouldn't it be glorious to give our Texas yell, though, and see what happened!"
"Tilly!" gasped the shocked Cordelia.
"Oh, I wasn't going to, of course," chuckled Tilly, softly. "I was just imaginin', you know."
"But even this—I'm not sure we ought—" began Cordelia.
"No, of course not; you never are, Cordy," agreed Tilly, smoothly.
"But let's talk Texas—we can whisper, you know. Tell us about Texas, Genevieve," cut in pacifier Alma, hurriedly. "What's it like—the ranch?"
Genevieve drew a happy sigh.
"Why, it's like—it's like nothing in Texas, we think," she breathed. "Of course we don't think any other ranch could come up to the Six Star!"
Tilly gave a sudden cry.
"The what?"
"The Six Star—our ranch, you know."
"You mean it's named the 'Six Star Ranch'?" demanded Tilly.
"Sure! Didn't I ever tell you?" retorted Genevieve in plain surprise.
Tilly clapped her hands softly.
"Didyou! Well, I should say not! You've always called it just 'the ranch.' And now—why, girls, don't you see?—it'sourranch. It couldn't have had a better name if we'd had it built to order. It's the Six Star Ranch—and we're the six star girls—the Happy Hexagons. And to think we never knew it before!"
There was a chorus of half-stifled exclamations of delight; then Cordelia demanded anxiously:
"But, Genevieve, will they be glad to see us, really—all your people out there?"
"Glad! I reckon they will be," averred Genevieve, warmly. "The boys will give us a rousing welcome, and there won't be anything too good for Mr. Tim and Mammy Lindy to do."
"Who are they?" asked Tilly.
"Mr. Tim is the ranch foreman, 'the boss,' the boys call him. He's been with us ever since I can remember, and he's so good to me! Mammy Lindy is—well, Mammy Lindy is a dear! You'll love Ol' Mammy. She's been just a mother to me ever since my own mother died eight years ago." Genevieve's voice faltered a little, then went on more firmly. "She's a negro woman, you know. Her people were slaves, once."
"And—the—boys?" asked Cordelia, dubiously. "Are they your—brothers, Genevieve?"
Genevieve laughed—a little more loudly than perhaps she realized.
"Brothers!—well, hardly! The boys are the cowboys—on the ranch, you know. My, but they'll give us a welcome! I reckon they'll ride into town to give it, too, in all their war paint. Just you wait till you see the boys—and hear them!" And Genevieve laughed again.
All in the dark Cordelia looked distinctly shocked; but, being in the dark, nobody noticed it.
"Well, I for one just can't wait," began Tilly, hugging herself with her arms about her knees. "Only think, it'll be whole daysnowbefore we get there, and—"
"Young ladies!"
Tilly stopped with a little cry of dismay. A man's voice had spoken close to her ear.
"Young ladies," came the mellow tones again. "I begs yo' pardon, but de lady what belongs down in number ten says maybe you done forgot dat dis am asleepin'car."
"Aunt Julia!" breathed Genevieve. "She's number ten."
"She sent the porter," gasped Cordelia. "How—how awful!—and you're in my house, too," she almost sobbed.
"Now I know we're playing house," tittered Alma Lane, hysterically, as she followed Genevieve out of the berth.
Once more in her own quarters, Genevieve lay back on her pillow with a remorseful sigh.
"I don't see why it's so much easier tosayyou'll never give anybody any trouble than 'tis todoit," she lamented, as she turned over with a jerk.
The girls began the "Chronicles of the Hexagon Club" the next morning. Genevieve made the first entry. She dwelt at some length on the confusion of the train-taking, both at Sunbridge and Boston. She also had something to say of Tilly Mack. She gave a full account, too, of the midnight session of the Hexagon Club in Cordelia's berth.
"And I'm ashamed that Aunt Julia had to be ashamed of me so soon," she wrote contritely.
Cordelia Wilson had agreed to make the second entry in the book; but the heat, the loss of sleep, and the strangeness and excitement added to her distress that "her house" should have been made to seem a disgrace in the eyes of the whole car, all conspired to make her feel so ill that she declared she could not think of writing for a day or two.
"Very well, then, you sha'n't write; we'll hand the book to Tilly," said Genevieve, "and then we'll give it to some of the others. But I'll tell you what we will do, Cordelia; you shall make the last entry in the book just before we leave the train at Bolo. And you can make it a sort of retrospect—a 'review lesson' of the whole, you know."
"But I thought the others—won't they each tell their day?"
"That'sjustwhat they'll tell—their day," retorted Genevieve, whimsically. "Youknowwhat most of them are. Alma Lane would be all right, and would give a true description of everything; only she would go into particulars so, that she would tell everything she saw from the windows, and just what she had to eat all day, down to the last olive."
"I know," nodded Cordelia, with a faint smile.
"As for Tilly—you can't get real sense, of course, from her part. If there's any nonsense going, Tilly Mack will find it and trot it out. Bertha Brown will take up the most of her space by saying 'I always said that—' etc., etc. Bertha is a dear—but you know she does just love to say 'I told you so.' Elsie will write clothes, of course. We shall find out what everybody has on when Elsie writes."
Cordelia laughed aloud—then clapped her hand to her aching head.
"You poor dear! What a shame," sympathized Genevieve. "But, Cordelia, why does Elsie think so much of clothes? Mercy! for my part I think they're the most tiresome sort of things to bother with; and it's such a waste of time to be having to change your dress always!"
Cordelia smiled; then her face sobered.
"Poor Elsie! I'm sorry for Elsie. She does have such an unhappy time over clothes."
"Why? How?—or isn't it fair to tell?" added Genevieve, with quick loyalty.
"Oh, yes, it's fair. Everybody knows it, 'most, and I supposed you did. Elsie herself tells of it. You know she lives with her aunt, Mrs. Gale. Well, Mrs. Gale has three daughters, Fannie, about twenty-one, I guess, and the twins, nineteen; and she just loves to make over their things for Elsie—so she does it."
"Are they so very—poor, then?"
"Oh, no; they aren't poor at all. I don't think she really has to do it. Aunt Mary says she's just naturally thrifty, and that she loves to make them over. But you see, poor Elsie almost never has a new dress—of new material, I mean. Now Elsie loves red; but Fannie wears blue a lot, and the twins like queer shades like faded-out greens and browns which Elsie abhors. Poor Elsie—no wonder she's always looking at clothes!"
"Hm-m; no wonder," nodded Genevieve, her pitying eyes on Elsie far down the aisle—Elsie, who, in a mustard-colored striped skirt and pongee blouse, was at that moment trying to perk up the loppy blue bows on a somewhat faded tan straw hat. "Well, anyhow," added Genevieve, with a sigh, "just remember, Cordelia, that you're to dothe last day of the trip in the Chronicles. Now lie down and give your poor head a rest."
Long before the last day of the journey came, Cordelia had quite recovered from her headache; but, in accordance with Genevieve's plan, she did not add her share to the Chronicles until the appointed time. Then, with almost a reverent air, she accepted the book and pen from Genevieve's hands, and returned to the seclusion of her seat, rejoicing that Tilly was playing checkers with Bertha, and so would not, presumably, disturb her—for a time, at least.
"To-day, at noon, we are to arrive at Bolo," she wrote a little unevenly; then with a firmer hand she went on. "Genevieve says this ought to be a retrospect, and touch lightly upon the whole trip; so I will try to make it so.
"It has been a beautiful journey. Nothing serious has happened, though Bertha has worn her shoes all the time expecting it. The best thing, so far, was our lovely day in Washington that Mr. Hartley gave us, and the President. (I mean, we saw him and he smiled.) And the worst thing (except that first night in my berth that Genevieve wrote of) was the time we lost Tilly for three whole hours, and Mrs. Kennedy got so nervous and white and frightened. We supposed, of course, she had fallen off, or jumped off, or got left off at some station.But just as we were talking with the porter about telegraphing everywhere, she danced in with two very untidy, unclean little Armenian children. It seems she had been in the emigrant car all the time playing with the children and trying to make the men and women talk their queer English. I never knew that gentle Mrs. Kennedy could speak so sharply as she did then to Tilly.
"And now—since Tuesday, some time—we have really been in Texas. Some things look just like Eastern things, but others are so strange and queer. It is very hot—I mean, very warm, too. But then, we have just as warm days in Sunbridge, I guess. The windmills look so queer—there are such a lot of them; but they look pretty, too. Some of the towns are very pretty, also, with their red roofs and blue barns and houses. Genevieve says lots of them are German villages.
"In some places lots of things are growing, but in others it is all just gray and bare-looking with nothing much growing except those queer prairie-dog cities with the funny little creatures sitting on top of their houses, or popping down into their holes only to turn around and look at you out of their bright little eyes. We had a splendid chance to see them once when our train stopped right in the middle of a prairie for a long time. We got off and walked quite a way with Mr. Hartley. I saw a rattlesnake, and I'm afraid I screamed. Iscreamed again when the horrid thing wiggled into one of the dog houses. Mr. Hartley says they live together sometimes, but if I were that dog he wouldn't live with me!
"We have seen lots of cattle and goats and hogs—though Tilly says she hasn't seen any of the latter under any gate yet. I have seen a mesquite tree (so I have done one of my things), and itdoeshave thorns. We are on another prairie now, and oh, how big it is, and such a lot of grass as there is on it—just as far as you can see, grass, grass, grass! I guess there won't be any danger of my not having plenty of that to take home. I have seen lots of men on horseback, but I don't know whether they were cowboys or not. They did not shoot, anyway, but some of them did yell.
"Genevieve says cowboys are to meet us, and that probably they will come away to Bolo in full war paint. I thought it was only Indians who painted—except silly ladies, of course—and I was going to say so; but Tilly was there, so I didn't like to. Of course I ought not to mind the cowboys—if Genevieve likes them, and they are her friends; but I can't help remembering what Mrs. Miller told me about their 'shooting up towns' in a very dreadful way when they were angry. I hope none of the men I want to find will turn out to be cowboys." (Here there were signs of an attempted erasure, but the words still stood, and immediatelyafter them came another sentence.) "That is, I mean I should hate to find that any friends of mine had become cowboys.
"I have just been reading over what I have written, and I am disappointed in it. I am sure I ought to have mentioned a great many things about which I have been silent. But there were so many things, and they all crowded at once before me, so that I had to just touch on the big things and the tall things—like windmills, for instance.
"We are getting nearer Bolo now, and I must stop and eat some luncheon, Genevieve says, as we sha'n't have anything else till supper on the ranch. Oh, I am so excited! Seems as if I couldn't draw a breath deep enough. And the idea of trying to eat when I feel like this!"
On the back gallery of the long, low ranch house, the boys were waiting for Teresa to ring the bell for supper. Comfortably they lolled about on hammocks, chairs, and steps, with their shirts open at the neck and plentifully powdered with the dust of the corral.
From the doorway, Tim Nolan, the ranch foreman, spoke to them hurriedly.
"See here, boys, I'm right sorry, but I've got to see Benson to-morrow about those steers. That means that I've got to go as far as Bolo to-night, and that I sha'n't be back in time to start with the rest of you to meet the folks. But I'll see you in Bolo day after to-morrow at noon. The train is due then. Now be on hand, all of you that can. We want Miss Genevieve and her friends to have a right royal welcome. I reckon now I'd better be off. So long! Now remember—day after to-morrow at noon!" he finished, turning away.
"As if we'd be a-forgettin' it," grinned Long John, a tall, lank fellow sprawled in a hammock,"when the little mistress hain't set her pretty foot on the place since last August!"
"If only she wa'n't bringin' all them others," groaned the short, sandy-haired man on the steps. "I'd just like to rope the whole bunch and send 'em back East again, old lady and all—all but the little mistress, of course. Boys, what are we a-goin' to do with an old lady—even though she ain't so awful old—and five tom-fool girls on the Six Star Ranch?"
"Ees not the Señorita a gurrl, also?" laughed a dark-eyed Mexican from his perch on the gallery railing. "Eh, Reddy?"
"Sure, Pedro," retorted the sandy-haired man, testily. (Pedro was the only Mexican cowboy at the ranch, and even he was barely tolerated.) "But the little mistress ain't no tenderfoot girl. She don't howl at a rattlesnake nor jump at a prairie dog; and she knows how to ride, and which end of a gun goes off!"
There was a general laugh, followed by a long silence—the boys did not usually talk so much together, but to-night a curious restlessness pervaded them all. Suddenly the tall man in the hammock pulled himself erect.
"Look a-here, boys, that's jest it," he began in a worried voice. "What if the little mistress has changed? What if she hain't no use for us and the ranch any more? I never told ye, but at the first,last August, 'fore she went away, I heard the boss and Mr. Hartley a-talkin'. They was sayin' she'd got to go East to learn how to live like a lady should—to know girls, and books, and all that. They said she was runnin' wild here with only us for playmates, and that they had just got ter pasture her out where the grass was finer, and the fences nearer tergether."
"Did they say—that?" gasped half a dozen worried voices.
"They sure did—and more. They said two real ladies was a-goin' ter take her and make her like themselves—a lady. And, boys, I was wonderin'—how is a lady goin' ter like us, and the ranch?"
There was a moment's tense silence. The boys were staring, wide-eyed and appalled, into each other's faces.
From somewhere came a deep sigh.
"Gorry!—she can't, she just can't, after all her book-learnin' and culturin'," groaned a new voice.
For a time no one spoke; then Reddy cleared his throat.
"Look a-here, there ain't but jest one thing to do. If she don't like the ranch—and us—we'll jest have to make the ranch—and us—so she will like 'em."
"How?" demanded a skeptical chorus.
"Slick 'em up—and us," retorted the sandy-haired man, with finality. "I was raised East, and I know the sort of doin's they hanker after. To-morrow mornin' we'll begin. I'll show you; you'll see," he finished in a louder tone, as Teresa's clanging supper bell sent them in a stampede through the long covered way that led to the dining-room which, with the cook room, occupied the large, low building thirty feet to the rear of the ranch house.
When Tim Nolan arrived at the Bolo station a little before noon two days later, he stared in open-mouthed wonder at the sight that greeted his eyes. In a wavering, straggling line stood ten stiff, red-faced, miserable men, dressed in what was, to Tim Nolan, the strangest assortment of garments he had ever seen.
Two of the men were in dead black, from head to foot. Four wore stiff, not over-clean white shirts. Six sported flaming red neckties. One had unearthed from somewhere a frock coat three sizes too small for him, which he wore very proudly, however, over a flannel shirt adorned with a red-and-green silk handkerchief knotted at the throat. Another displayed a somewhat battered silk hat. But, whatever they wore, each showed a face upon which hope, despair, pride, shame, and physical misery were curiously blended.
For an instant Tim Nolan peered at them withunrecognizing eyes; then he gave a low ejaculation.
"Reddy! Carlos! Jim! Boys!" he gasped. "What in the world is the meaning of this?"
"Eet ees that we welcome the little Señorita an' her frien's," bowed Pedro, doffing his sombrero which was the only part of his usual costume that he had retained.
"But—I don't understand," demurred the foreman; "these rigs of yours! Reddy, where in time did you corral that coat?"
Reddy shifted from one uneasy foot to the other.
"Pedro's told you—we're here to welcome the little mistress, of course. We've slicked up. We—we didn't want the shock too sudden—from the East, you know."
For another moment Tim Nolan stared; then he threw back his head and laughed—laughed till the faces of the men before him grew red with something more than discomfort.
At that moment a pretty young girl in khaki and a cowboy hat made her appearance astride a frisky little mustang. She wore a cartridge belt about her waist—though there was no revolver in her holster.
"Is Genevieve coming to-day, sure?" she called out joyfully. "I heard she was, and I've come to meet her."
"There, boys," bantered the ranch foreman, "now here's a young lady who knows how to welcomethe mistress of the Six Star Ranch!" Then, to the girl: "Sure, Miss Susie, we do expect Genevieve, and we're here to welcome her, as you see," he finished with a sweep of his broad-brimmed hat.
It looked, for a moment, as if the wavering, straggling men would break ranks and run; but a sudden distant whistle, and a sharp command from Reddy brought them right about face.
"Buck up, boys," he ordered sharply. "I reckon the little mistress ain't a-goin' ter turn us down! She'll like it. You'll see!"
The train had scarcely come to a stop before Genevieve was off the car steps.
"Mr. Tim, Mr. Tim—here I am! Oh, how good you look!" she cried, holding out both her hands. A minute later she turned to introduce the embarrassed foreman to Mrs. Kennedy and the girls, who, with her father, were following close at her heels. This task was not half completed, however, when she spied the red-faced, anxious-eyed men.
As Mr. Tim had done, she stared dumbly for a moment; then, leaving the rest of the introductions to her father, she ran toward them.
"Why, it's the boys—our boys! Carlos, Long John, Reddy! But whatisthe matter? How queer you look! Is anybody sick—or—dead?" she stammered, plainly in doubt what to say.
"Sure, it's for you—we're a-welcomin' you,"exploded Long John, jerking at his collar which was obviously too small for him.
Genevieve's face showed a puzzled frown.
"But these clothes!—why are you like this?—and after all I've promised the girls about you, too!"
"You mean—you don't like it—this?" demanded Reddy, incredulous hope in his eyes and voice.
"Of course I don't like it! I've been promising the girls all the way here that you'd give them a welcome thatwasa welcome! And now—but why did you do it, boys?"
Long John drew himself to his full height.
"Why? 'Cause Reddy said to," he answered. "Reddy said we'd better ease up on the shock it would be to you—here, after all you'd been used to back East—fine clothes, fine feed, and fine doin's all around, to say nothin' of books and learnin' in between times; so we—we tried to break ye in easy. That's all," he finished, a little lamely.
"And then these clothes mean—that?" demanded the girl.
Long John nodded dumbly.
Genevieve gave a ringing laugh, but her eyes grew soft as she extended her hand to each man in turn.
"What old dears you are—every one of you!" she exclaimed. "Now go home quick, and get comfortable." She would have said more, but someone called her and she turned abruptly. Cordelia Wilson, looking half frightened, half exultant, but wholly excited, was pulling at her sleeve.
"Genevieve, Genevieve, quick," she was panting; "is that a cowboy—that, over there—talking to your father?"
Genevieve turned with a wondering frown. The next moment she burst into a merry laugh.
"Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia, you will be the death of me, yet! No, that isn't a cowboy. It's Susie Billings. She lives on a ranch near here."
"A girl—dressed like that—and carrying a revolver! Just a common 'Susie!'" gasped Cordelia.
"Yes—just a common 'Susie,'" twinkled Genevieve.
"But I thought she was a—a cowboy," quavered Cordelia. "Yousaidthey'd be here in—in all their war paint!"
From behind them sounded a muffled snort and a low-voiced:
"Boys, she thinks that's a cowboy! Come on—say we show 'em! Eh?"
Genevieve laughed softly at what Cordelia had said, and at the disappointment in her voice.
"Cowboys? Well, theyarehere," she acknowledged with twitching lips, "and in their war paint, too—of a kind! They're right here—Why, they'regone," she broke off. "Never mind," shelaughed, as she caught sight of a silk hat and a black coat hurrying toward a group of saddled ponies. "I reckon you'll see all the cowboys you want to before you go back East again. Now come up and meet Susie—and she hasn't, really, any revolver there, Cordelia, in spite of that cartridge belt and holster. She's always rigging up that way. She likes it!"
Susie proved to be "a girl just like us," as Cordelia amazedly expressed it to Alma Lane. She was certainly a very pleasant one, they all decided. But even Susie could not keep their eyes from wandering to the unfamiliar scene around them.
It was a bare little station set in the midst of a bare little prairie town, and quite unlike anything the Easterners had ever seen before. Broad, dusty streets led seemingly nowhere. Low, straggling houses stretched out lazy lengths of untidiness, except where a group of taller, more pretentious buildings indicated the stores, a hotel or two, several boarding houses, and numerous saloons and dance halls.
From the station doorway, a blanketed Indian looked out with stolid, unsmiling face. Leaning against a post a dreamy-eyed Mexican in tight trousers, red sash, and tall peaked hat, smoked a cigarette. Halfway down the platform a tired-looking man in heavy cowhide boots and rough clothes, watched beside a huge canvas-topped wagonbeyond which could be seen the switching tails of six great oxen.
"There's Fred's 'boat,'" remarked Bertha, laughingly, to Cordelia.
"Where? What?" Cordelia had been trying to look in all directions at once.
"That prairie schooner down there."
"Now that looks like the pictures," asserted Cordelia. "I wonder if the cowboys will."
"I declare, the whole thing is worse than a three-ring circus," declared Tilly, aggrievedly, to Genevieve. "I simply can't see everything!"
"All aboard for the ranch," called Mr. Hartley, leading the way around to the other side of the station; and like a flock of prairie chickens, as Genevieve put it, they all trooped after him.
"Why, what funny horses!" cried Tilly, as Mr. Hartley stopped before a large, old-fashioned three-seated carriage drawn up to the platform.
At Genevieve's chuckling laugh, Tilly threw a sharper glance toward the two gray creatures attached to the carriage.
"Why, they aren't horses at all—yes, they are—no, they aren't, either!"
"I always heard young ladies were a bit changeable," grinned Tim Nolan, mischievously; "but do they always change their minds as often as that, Miss?"
"Yes, they do—when the occasion demands it,"retorted Tilly, with a merry glance; and Tim Nolan laughed appreciatively.
"Well, they aren't horses," smiled Mr. Hartley, as he gave his hand to help Mrs. Kennedy into the carriage. "They happen to be mules. Now, Miss Tilly, if you'll come in here with Mrs. Kennedy, we'll put two other young ladies and myself in the other two seats, and leave Genevieve to do the honors in one of the ranch wagons with the rest of you. The baggage, the boys are already putting in the other wagon, I see," he added, looking back to where two men were busy with a pile of trunks and bags. "They'll come along after us. Mr. Tim is on his horse, of course. We'll let him show us the way. Now stow yourselves comfortably," he admonished his guests. "You know we have an eighteen-mile ride ahead of us!"
Through the broad, dusty streets, by the straggling houses, and out on to the boundless sea of grass trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons, with Mr. Tim in the lead.
Five pairs of eyes grew wide with wonder and awe.
"I didn't suppose anything in the world could be so—so far," breathed Cordelia, who was with Mr. Hartley on the front seat of the carriage.
"No wonder Genevieve was always talking about 'space, wide, wide space,'" cried Bertha. "Why, it's just like the ocean—only more so, because there aren't any waves."
"As if anything could be more like the ocean than the ocean itself," giggled Tilly.
Mr. Hartley laughed good-naturedly.
"Never mind, Miss Bertha," he nodded. "Just you wait till there's a little more wind, and you'll see some waves, I reckon. It's mighty still just now; and yet—there, look! Over there to the right—see?"
They all looked, and they all saw. They saw far in the distance the green change to gray, and the gray to faint purple, and back again to green, while curious shifting lights and shadows glancing across the waving blades of grass, made them ripple like water in the sunlight. At the same time, from somewhere, came a soft, cool wind.
"Why, it is—it is just like the ocean," exulted Cordelia. "I've seen it look like that down to Nantasket, 'way, 'way off at sea."
"I told you 'twas," triumphed Bertha.
"Well, anyway," observed Tilly, demurely, "they must be awfully dry waves—not much fun to jump!"
"Tilly, how can you?" protested Cordelia. "How you do take the poetry out of anything! I believe you'd take the poetry out of—of Shakespeare himself!"
"Pooh! Never saw much in him to take out," shrugged Tilly.
"Tilly!" gasped Cordelia.
"Tilly can't see poetry in anything that doesn't jingle like 'If you love me as I love you, no knife can cut our love in two,'" chanted Bertha.
"My dears!" remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, feebly.
Tilly turned with swift pacification.
"Don't you worry, Mrs. Kennedy. I'm used to it. They can't trouble me any!"
It was Mr. Hartley who broke the silence that followed.
"Well, Miss Cordelia," he asked laughingly, "what is the matter? You've been peering in all directions, and you look as if you hadn't found what you were hunting for. You weren't expecting to find soda fountains and candy stores on the prairie, were you?"
Cordelia smiled and shook her head.
"Of course not, Mr. Hartley! I was looking for the blue bonnets—the flowers, you know. Genevieve said they grew wild all through the prairie grass."
"And so they do—specially, early in the spring, my dear. I wish you could see them, then."
"I wish I could—Genevieve has told me so much about them. She says they're the state flower. I thought they had such a funny name; I wanted to pick one, if I could. She says they're lovely, too."
"They are, indeed, and I wish you could see them when they are at their best," rejoined Mr. Hartley; then he turned to Bertha, who had been listening with evident interest. "In the spring it's a blue ocean, Miss Bertha—I wish you could see the wind sweep across it then! And I wish you could smell it, too," he added with a laugh. "I reckon you wouldn't think it much like your salty, fishy east wind," he finished, twinkling.
"Oh, but we just love that salty, fishy east wind, every time we go near the shore," retorted a chorus of loyal Eastern voices; and Mr. Hartley laughed again.
In the ranch wagon behind them, Genevieve was doing the honors of the prairie right royally. Here, there, and everywhere she was pointing out something of interest. In the ranch wagon, too, the marvelous hush and charm of limitless distance had wrought its own spell; and all had fallen silent.
It was Alma Lane who broke the pause.
"What are all those deep, narrow paths, such a lot of them, running parallel to the wheel tracks?" she asked curiously. "I've been watching them ever since we left Bolo. They are on both sides, too."
"They're made by the cattle," answered Genevieve; "such a lot of them, you know, traveling single file on their way to Bolo. Bolo is a 'cow town'—that is, they ship cattle to market from there."
"Poor things," sighed Elsie, sympathetically. "I saw some yesterday from the train. I thought then I never wanted to eat another piece of beefsteak—and I adore beefsteak, too."
Genevieve sobered a little.
"I know it; I know just how you feel. I hate that part—but it's business, I suppose. I reckon I hate business, anyhow—but I love the ranch! I can't get used to the branding, either."
"What's that?" asked Elsie.
Genevieve shook her head. A look of pain crossed her face.
"Don't ask me, Elsie, please. You'll find out soon enough. Branding is business, too, I suppose—but it's horrid. Mammy Lindy says that the first time I saw our brand on a calf and realized what it meant and how it got there, I cried for hours—for days, in fact, much of the time."
"Why, Genevieve," cried Elsie, wonderingly. "How dreadful! What is a brand? I thought 'brand' meant the kind of coffee or tea one drank."
Alma frowned and threw a quick look into Genevieve's face.
"What a funny little town Bolo is!" she exclaimed, with a swift change of subject. "I declare, it looked 'most as sleepy as Sunbridge."
"Sleepy!" laughed Genevieve, her face clearing, much to Alma's satisfaction. "You should see Bolo when it's really awake—say when some association of cattlemen meet there. And there's going to be one next month, I think. There's no end of fun and frolic and horse-racing then, with everybody there, from the cowboys and cattle-kings to the trappers and Indians. You wouldn't think there was anything sleepy about Bolo then, I reckon," nodded Genevieve, gayly.
"Genevieve, quick—look!—off there," cried Elsie, excitedly.
"Some more of Fred's 'boats'—three of them this time," laughed Alma, her eyes on the three white-topped wagons glistening in the sunlight.
"Boats?" questioned Genevieve.
"That's what little Fred Wilson told us we were going to ride in," explained Alma. "He said they had prairie schooners here, and schooners were boats, of course."
Genevieve laughed merrily.
"I wish Fred could see these 'boats,'" she said.
"Well, I don't know; I feel as if they were boats," declared Alma, stoutly. "I'm sure I don't think anybody on the ocean could be any more glad to see a sail than I should be to see one of these, if I were a lonely traveler on this sea of grass!"
"But where are they going?" questioned Elsie.
"I don't know—nor do they, probably," rejoined Genevieve, with a quizzical smile. "They're presumably emigrants hunting up cheap land for a new home. There used to be lots of them, Father says; but there aren't so many now. See—they're going to cross our way just ahead of us. We'll get a splendid view of them."
Nearer and nearer came the curiously clumsy, yet curiously airy-looking wagons. Sallow-faced women looked out mournfully, and tow-headed children peeped from every vantage point. Brawny, but weary-looking men stalked beside their teams.
"Look at the men—walking!" cried Elsie.
"They're 'bull-whackers,'" nodded Genevieve, mischievously.
"Bull-whackers!"
"Yes, because their teams happen to be oxen; if they were mules, now, they'd be 'mule-skinners.'"
"Is that what you are, then?" asked Elsie, with a demureness that rivaled Tilly's best efforts. "You're driving mules, you know."
"Well, you better not call me that," laughed Genevieve. "See, they've stopped to speak to Father. I reckon we'll have to stop, too."
"I 'reckon' we shall," mimicked Elsie, good-naturedly.
"They've got all their household goods and gods in those wagons," said Genevieve, musingly. "I can see a tin coffeepot hanging straight over one woman's head."
"I shouldn't think they had anything but children," laughed Alma, as from every wagon there tumbled a scrambling, squirming mass of barefoot legs, thin brown arms, and touseled hair above wide, questioning eyes.
Long minutes later, from the carriage, Cordelia Wilson followed with dreamy eyes the slow-receding wagons, now again upon their way.
"I feel just like 'ships that pass in the night,'" she murmured.
"I don't. I feel just like supper," whisperedTilly. Then she laughed at the frightened look Cordelia flung at Mr. Hartley.
On and on through the shimmering heat, under the cloudless sky, trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons. Mr. Tim had long ago galloped out of sight.
It was when they were within five miles of the ranch that Cordelia, looking far ahead, saw against the horizon a rapidly growing black speck. For some time she watched it in silence; then, suddenly, she became aware that, large as was the speck now, it had broken into other specks—bobbing, shifting specks that promptly became not specks at all, but men on horseback.
Spasmodically she clutched Mr. Hartley's arm.
"What—are—those?" she questioned, with dry lips.
Mr. Hartley gave an indifferent glance ahead.
"Cowboys, I should say," he answered.
Cordelia caught her breath. At that moment a shot rang out, then another, and another.
Mr. Hartley looked up now, sharply, a little angrily. The indifference was quite gone from his face.
It was then that Genevieve's voice came clear and strong from the wagon behind.