Chapter IV: Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sufferin' Moses!" groaned Jonah Bean.

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

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

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

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

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

And she drew aside to reveal the clipper.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*A Partner of the Sun*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'Cause Elizabeth _knows_," chimed in the Babe, loyally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*CHAPTER IX*

*A Rose by Another Name*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Harvey Grannis said good-bye, it was plain they were entering on a new era of friendship with the lonely man. Apparently he would be willing to benefit his sister's family in the way that pleased them--not insisting that it should be exclusively a way that pleased him.

When Grannis was gone Roy returned to his work at the grocery and the Babe finally quieted down to her lessons. Mrs. Spooner asked Ruth if she would not help her younger sister with them, leaving Elizabeth to have a little talk with her father. The tall eldest girl followed her mother into the other room, and soon found herself seated between the two people who were so dear to her, the only parents she had ever known. Thus she listened to a strange story told Captain Spooner by a soldier of his own regiment--and who had died in Cuba.

"I don't remember him much on the way out, or in camp, except that he was a very tall man, well set up and good-looking--a fine type of Englishman," the Captain said. "He kept himself to himself, the other men said, and although I remembered afterward that he had looked at me curiously once or twice, I couldn't be sure that I'd ever seen him before until he spoke to me one day. You'd sent me a lot of little snap-shots, Elizabeth, and I was showing them to some of the officers and mentioned your name. I saw him turn, and after awhile he came and asked to look at the pictures. I noticed then that he didn't pay much attention to any of them but yours, and when he handed them back he said hastily that he wanted to have a talk with me. He had the reserved English way, but I could see that he was much upset. The next day we had a pretty hot little skirmish, getting some of us for good, and wounding a good many. After the fight was over they sent for me to go to the field hospital, and there he was, wounded badly--knowing he had to die!"

Elizabeth was strangely shaken during this story, and she held fast to her mother's hand, as though to make sure they were not giving her up. Instinct told her of whom Captain Spooner was speaking, and when he went on she needed no further explanation.

"He was an Englishman, sure enough, Elizabeth, of good family, but a younger son, of course, and without any money. It seems he married the daughter of the rector of his parish, and she hadn't anything either. They came over to America--to Texas--thinking to make a fortune, but found hard times and bad luck instead. His young wife died while they were on their way to California, traveling in a wagon, and he was so broken-hearted and helpless that he left his baby girl with--well, he left her with a mighty good woman, and I guess he knew it!"

Captain Spooner glanced at his wife; Elizabeth dropped her head on her mother's slender shoulder and cried softly.

"It makes me feel so sorry," she whispered. "Yet I'm glad too--glad I belong to you, even if my father did desert me!"

"He didn't, Elizabeth. That is, not knowingly," Captain Spooner explained gently. "When he went away from here he had promised to send money for your keep, and he said he would come back for you. He did send some money, then all at once it ceased, and we never heard from him again. It seems he got word that you were dead. Some movers coming through told him of a baby that had died, and they mixed it up some way. He was sick and down on his luck at the time, and failed to write to us, but he never would have done it if he'd known his daughter was living. Philip Maude wasn't that kind of a man. He was a gentleman, born and bred, and a brave man always."

"O, Father--I love to hear you say that!" said Elizabeth. "I'll always be glad to think of him as brave and kind. But I thought--Cousin Hannah said--wasn't the name _Mudd_?"

"Mudd? No, indeed. His name was Maude--M-a-u-d-e. A very good name, too. What on earth made you think it was Mudd?"

"Cousin Hannah told me so," sobbed Elizabeth. "And O, now I can tell you when it's all over--I've been so bitterly ashamed and miserable to know that I, who used to really fool myself into thinking I was better than other people, was just a miserable mover's child--and that my name was Mudd!"

"Cousin Hannah always did pronounce it that way," said Mrs. Spooner, "she may have thought it was spelled so--it's too bad to think how you suffered for her mistake." The motherly eyes overflowed, realizing how sensitive Elizabeth, who adored pretty names, must have felt at being saddled with such a grotesquely ugly one.

"So Philip Maude thought his daughter was dead till I showed those pictures. He told me that when he saw the little photograph it was like looking at a picture of his dead wife. He saw how much I loved you, and how proud I was of you, and he had a struggle in his mind to know whether he ought to claim you after all these years; but he had decided that he must give you up when the fight came on, and the decision was taken out of his bands. The reason he sent for me at the last was that he had, a few weeks before he enlisted, got notice of a small inheritance that had fallen to him in England. It won't be more than twenty-five thousand dollars--five thousand pounds, he called it--but he made his will, and gave me his papers so that you might prove your right to it, and he said that you might want to go home to your own people in England. He sent you this ring, and this broken watch chain--the watch itself was shattered by the bullet that gave him his death wound."

Elizabeth took the ring and chain he handed her and wept over them. They seemed to bring the father she had never consciously seen very close to her. It was not as though he took this father's place, but rather as if he were some one among her ancestors, far back, almost in another life.

"I hope I may go there some time," she said at last. "But you and mother are the only father and mother I can ever have--and my home must be here with you."

* * * * *

The Spooners stayed on in the old adobe through the winter. There was little to do at the ranch, and they were really more comfortable where they were. The first installment of Elizabeth's income arrived from England about holiday time, and made things most wonderfully joyous in the Spooner family. It was comical to see how the new state of affairs impressed Maudie Pratt. Grandmother's diamond ring became a small matter indeed compared to the small packet of really excellent old jewelry that was forwarded to Elizabeth. The fact that she added Maude to her name, simply calling herself Elizabeth Maude Spooner, was rather a disappointment. Maudie Pratt, under similar circumstances, would have promptly dropped the Spooner altogether.

The wise little mother looked on and breathed many a sigh of thankfulness that Elizabeth's good fortune had not come to her before she was tried and proven. When she saw her daughter choose wisely, and behave modestly, and carry her new honors with simple graciousness, she was aware that the year of discipline which had preceded the reward, had made it a reward indeed.

When they all went out again to the ranch, Elizabeth insisted on investing some of her money in making the home beautiful and comfortable for them all. Harvey Grannis admired her greatly for doing so, yet he was in some sense jealous, and being a man of means he attempted, with a simplicity that sometimes made them all laugh, to match any act of generosity on Elizabeth's part with one of his own. There was soon a commodious, well-built house, a beautiful and properly irrigated lawn, with beds of brilliant flowers where once only the cactus could be coaxed to bloom. These out-door luxuries were made possible by that almost unattainable thing in such a country--plenty of water, for Harvey Grannis made his namesake a deed to the pasture containing the big water-hole. More land was bought and added to the ranch, as Captain Spooner prospered, and with the luck of 'him that hath,' money came in until the Spooner brand was perhaps the best in the country, and of such fine quality that it was the pride of old Jonah's heart.

The question of education was one of the first things to come up in the affairs of these young people, and Elizabeth declared that her income was to be used for schooling the whole bunch--and in the bunch she included Roy Lambert. That independent young man, however, preferred to work his way, as many an independent American boy has done before him. He chose an agricultural college, for he believed that the cattle business would gradually diminish, and that all of the ranches would be forced into more or less farming as the years went on. His ideas have proved correct, and as he is a skilled and educated farmer, and a natural manager, Captain Spooner has never seen the time when he was willing to give up the claim they had on him at the time that Mrs. Spooner called him her adopted son.

Most laughable of all, Harvey Grannis takes a great pride and personal satisfaction in Roy's success. To hear him talk about it one would think he had brought the boy west and placed him in his sister's home--as indeed he did, though quite unwittingly. With the lapse of years Harvey has become gentler in his dealings with people, and more amenable. If he ever quarrels--and being Harvey Grannis, of course he does sometimes--the Babe immediately acts as peacemaker, and he declares that his nieces are the finest girls in the state of Texas, and that the Babe is to inherit every acre and hoof of his possessions!

These greater advantages came to the Babe earlier than to the other girls, and she was the only one of the three who cared to go to an eastern college and take a degree. She was preparing herself for her chosen career as a writer of stories for children, finding in that work free vent for her exuberant fancy.

The year Ruth was nineteen she visited Mary in Oklahoma, and came back engaged to her brother-in-law's brother, a young ranchman of good looks and qualities, and fairly prosperous. She now lives on a ranch of her own, and, with Mary, makes frequent visits to the home folks, where the circle is still unbroken, even old Jonah still being spry and happy, and delighting in relating his wonderful war stories as of old.

When Elizabeth finally left for England, partly to see her people--who consisted of somewhat distant relatives, and partly for a course of study, Roy felt that he would not be honorable in asking her to consent to an engagement. He told her that he was sure she would find her ideals changing very much when she was among her own people, in such surroundings as were really befitting to her.

But she came back to Silver Spur, a well-trained and popular painter of miniatures, having chosen this for her profession. She came back to Roy, and to the dear parents who were, after all, more her own people than those she had left behind her in England.

And it turned out that Elizabeth's real profession is not art but home-making. She and Roy are married and live still at Silver Spur, perfectly happy with each other, and radiating happiness about them by the love and forethought of beautiful, unselfish natures.

(THE END.)