Chapter III: Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I guess I can _make_ you pay," stormed Maudie, "you _promised_, and you've got to keep your word."

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

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

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

*CHAPTER VI*

*The Shiny Black Box*

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

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

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

"Turn it over," prompted Elizabeth impatiently.

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

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

"My diamond ring!" she gasped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elizabeth thought it over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*CHAPTER VII*

*The Wire Clipper*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Little Harvie looked doubtful.

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

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

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

The Babe's own blue eyes filled with tears.

"Queen Berengaria isn't _very_ beautiful," she admitted, "but she's _awful_ good!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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