* * S I X STAR RANCH ELEANOR H. PORTER SIX STAR RANCH BY THE AUTHOR OF POLLYANNA: THE GLAD BOOK Trade Mark Trade Mark ft POLLYANNA: THE GLAD OOK - 7.75 Trade Mark Trade Mark POLLYANNA QROWS UP: THE SECOND Trade Mark GLA Texas. SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER II PLANS FOR TEXAS IT was a pretty little grove in which the Happy Hexagons met to study and to talk Texas. Nor were they the only ones that met there. Though Harold Day, Alma Lane's cousin, was not to be oi the Texas party, the girls invited him to meet with them, as he was Texas-born, and was one of Gene- vieve's first friends in Sunbridge. On the outskirts of the magic circle, sundry smaller brothers and sisters and cousins of the members hung adoringly. Even grown men and women came sometimes, and stood apart, looking on with what the Happy Hexa- gons chose to think were admiring, awestruck eyes which was not a little flattering, though quite natural and proper, decided the club. For, of course, not every one could go to Texas, to be sure ! At the beginning, at least, of each meeting, affairs were conducted with the seriousness due to so im- portant a subject. In impressive silence the club seated itself in a circle ; and solemnly Cordelia Wil- son, the treasurer, opened the meeting, being (ac- cording to Tilly) a " perfect image of her uncle in the pulpit." SIX STAR RANCH 13 " Fellow members, once more we find ourselves gathered together for the purpose of the study of Texas," she would begin invariably. And then per- haps : " We will listen to Miss Bertha Brown, please. Miss Brown, what new thing I mean, what new features have you discovered about Texas? " If Miss Brown had something to say and of course she did have something (she would have been disgraced, otherwise) she said it. Then each in turn was asked, after which the discussion was open to all. They were lively meetings. No wonder small brothers and sisters and cousins hung entranced on every word. No wonder, too, that at last, one day, quite carried away with the enthusiasm of the mo- ment, they made so bold as to have something to say on their own account. It happened like this : " Texas is the largest state in the Union," an- nounced Bertha Brown, who had been called on first. " It has an area about one twelfth as large as that of the whole United States. If all the population of the country were placed there, the state would not be as thickly settled as the eastern shore of Massachu- setts is. Six different flags have waved over it since its discovery two hundred years ago : France, Spain, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States of, America, and the Star Spangled Banner." " Pooh ! I said most of that two days ago," mut- tered Tilly, not under breath. 14 SIX STAR RANCH "Well, I can't help it,' 7 pouted Bertha; "there isn't very much new left to say, Tilly Mack, and you know it. Besides, I didn't have a minute's time this morning to look up a single thing." "Order order in the court," rapped Cordelia, sharply. " Oh, but it doesn't matter a bit if we do say the same things," protested Alma Lane, quickly. (Alma was always trying to make peace between com- batants.) "I'm sure we shall remember it all the better if we do repeat it." " Of course we shall," agreed Cordelia, promptly. "Now, Alma I mean Miss Lane " (this title-giving was brand-new, having been introduced as a special mark of dignity fitting to the occasion ; and it was not easy to remember!) " perhaps you will tell us what you have found out." "Well, the climate is healthful," began Alma, hopefully. " Texas is less subject to malarial dis- eases than any of the other states on the Gulf of Mexico. September is the most rainy month; De- cember the least. The mean annual temperature near the mouth of the Rio Grande is 72; while along the Red River the mean annual temperature is only 80. In the northwestern part of the state the mean annual " " Alma, please," begged Tilly, in mock horror, raising both her hands, ff please don't give us any more of those mean annual temperatures. I'm sure SIX STAR RANCH 15 if they can be any meaner than the temperature right here to-day is," she sighed, as she fell to fanning herself vigorously, " I don't want to know what it is!" " Tilly ! " gasped Cordelia, in shocked disap- proval. "What would Genevieve say!" Tilly shrugged her shoulders. " Say ? She wouldn't say anything she couldn't," declared Tilly, unexpectedly, " because she'd be laughing at us so for digging into Texas like this and unearthing all its poor little secrets ! " " But, Tilly, I think we ought to study it," re- proved Cordelia, majestically, above the laugh that followed Tilly's speech. " Elsie I mean, Miss Martin, what did you find out to-day? " Elsie wrinkled her nose in a laughing grimace at Tilly, then began to speak in an exaggeratedly sol- emn tone of voice. " I find Texas is so large, and contains so great a variety of soil, and climate, that any product of the United States can be grown within its limits. It is a leader on cotton. Corn, wheat, rice, peanuts, sugar cane and potatoes are also grown, besides tobacco." " And watermelons, Elsie," cut in Bertha Brown. " I found in a paper that just last year Texas grew 140,000,000 watermelons." " I was coming to the watermelons," observed Elsie, with dignity. 16 SIX STAR RANCH " Wish I were I dote on watermelons ! " pouted Tilly in an audible aside that brought a chuckle of appreciation from Harold Day. Cordelia gave her a reproachful look. Elsie went on, her chin a little higher. " Texas is the greatest producer of honey in the United States. As for the cattle prior to 1775 there were vast ranches all over Southwestern Texas, and herds of hundreds of wild cattle were gathered and driven to New Orleans. I found some figures that told the number of animals in 1892, or about then. I'll give them. They're old now, of course, but they'll do to show what a lot of animals there were there then." Elsie paused to take breath, but for only a mo- ment. " There were 7,500,000 head of cattle, 5,000,000 sheep, and 1,210,000 horses, besides more than 2,321,000 hogs." There was a sudden giggle from Tilly an ex- plosive giggle that brought every amazed eye upon her. "Well, really, Tilly," disapproved Elsie, ag- . grievedly, " I'm sure I don't see what there was s* very funny in that ! " "There wasn't," choked Tilly; "only I was thinking, what an awful noise it would be if all those 2,321,000 hogs got under the gate at once." "Tilly!" scolded Cordelia; but she laughed. SIX STAR RANCH 17 She could not help it. They all laughed. Even the little boys and girls on the outskirts giggled shrilly, and stole the opportunity to draw nearer to the magic circle. Almost at once, however, Cordelia regained her dignity. " Miss Mack, we'll hear from you, please seri- ously, I mean. You haven't told us yet what you've found." Tilly flushed a little. " I didn't find anything." " Why, Tilly Mack ! " cried a chorus of condemn- ing voices. " Well, I didn't," defended Tilly. " In the first place I've told everything I can think of : trees, fruits, history, and everything; and this morning I just had to go to Mrs. Miller's for a fitting." " Oh, Tilly, another new dress? " demanded Elsie Martin, her voice a pathetic wail of wistfulness. " But there are still so many things," argued Cor- delia, her grave eyes fixed on Tilly, " so many things to learn that " She was interrupted by an eager little voice from the outskirts. " I've got something, please, Cordelia. Mayn't I tell it ? It's a brand-newest thing. Nobody's said it once ! " Cordelia turned to confront her ten-year-old cousin, Edith. " Why, Edith ! " " And I have, too," piped up Edith's brother, 18 SIX STAR RANCH Fred, with shrill earnestness. (Fred was eight.) " And mine's new, too." Cordelia frowned thoughtfully. " But, children, you don't belong to the club. Only members can talk, you know." " Pooh ! let's hear it, Cordelia," shrugged Tilly. '"I'm sure if it's new we need it of all the old chestnuts we've heard to-day!" "Well," agreed Cordelia, "what is it, Edith? You spoke first." " It's gypsies," announced the small girl, tri- umphantly. " Gypsies ! " chorused the Happy Hexagons in open unbelief. 1 Yes. There's lots of 'em there more than ^most anywhere else in the world." The girls looked at each other with puzzled eyes. " Why, I never heard Genevieve say anything about gypsies," ventured Tilly. " Well, they're there, anyhow," maintained Edith; " I read it." " You read it! Where? " demanded Cordelia. " In father's big sacTpedia." Edith's voice sounded grieved, but triumphant. " I was up in auntie's room, and I saw it. It was open on her bed, and I read it. It said there was coal and iron and silver, and lots and lots of gypsies." There was a breathless hush, followed suddenly by a shrieking laugh from Tilly. SIX STAR RANCH 19 " Oh, girls, girls ! " she gasped. " That blessed child means ' gypsum/ I saw that in papa's encyclo- pedia just the other day." " But what is gypsum? " demanded Alma Lane. "Mercy! don't ask me," shuddered Tilly. "I looked it up in the dictionary, but it only said it was a whole lot of worse names. All I could make out was that it had crystals, and was used for dressing for soils, and for plaster of Paris. Gypsies! Oh, Edith, Edith, what a circus you are ! " she chuckled, going into another gale of laughter. It was Fred's injured tones that filled the first pause in the general hubbub that followed Tilly's explanation. " You haven't heard mine, yet," he challenged. "Mine's right!" " Well ? " questioned Cordelia, wiping her eyes. (Even Cordelia had laughed till she cried.) " What is yours, Fred ? " " It's boats. There hasn't one of you said a single thing about the boats you were going to ride in." " Boats ! " cried the girls in a second chorus of unbelief. " Oh, you needn't try to talk me out of that," bristled the boy. " I know what I'm talking about. Old Mr. Hodges told me himself. He's been in 'em. He said that years and years ago, when he was a little boy like me, he and his father and mother went 'way across the state of Texas in a prairie 20 SIX STAR RANCH schooner; and I asked father that night what a schooner was, and he said it was a boat. Well, he did ! " maintained Fred, a little angrily, as a shout of laughter rose from the girls. " And so 'tis a boat some kinds of schooners," Harold Day soothed the boy quickly, rising to his feet, and putting a friendly arm about the small heaving shoulders. " Come on, son, let's you and I go over to the house. I've got a dandy picture of a prairie schooner over there, and we'll hunt it up and see just what it looks like." And with a cere- monious " Good day, ladies ! " and an elaborate flourish of his hat toward the Happy Hexagons, Harold drew the boy more closely into the circle of his arm and turned away. It was the signal for a general breaking up of the club meeting. Cordelia, only, looked a little anx- iously after the two boys, as she complained : " Harold never tells a thing that he knows about Texas, and he must know a lot of things, even if he did leave there when he was a tiny little baby ! " "Don't you fret, Cordy," retorted Tilly. (Cor- delia did not like to be called " Cordy," and Tilly knew it.) "Harold Day will talk Texas all right after Genevieve gets back. Besides, you couldn't expect a boy to join in with a girls' club like us, just as if he were another girl specially as he isn't going to Texas, anyway." " Well, all he ever does is just to sit and look SIX STAR RANCH bored except when Tilly gets in some of her digs," chuckled Bertha. " Glad I'm good for something, if nothing but to stir up Harold, then," laughed Tilly, as she turned away to answer Elsie Martin's anxious : " Tilly, what color is the new dress ? Is it red ? " It was the next day that the letter came from Genevieve. Cordelia brought it to the club meeting that afternoon; and so full of importance and ex- citement was she that for once she quite forgot to open the meeting with her usual ceremony. " Girls, girls, just listen to this ! " she began breathlessly. The Happy Hexagons opened wide their eyes. Never before had they seen the usually placid Cor- delia like this. " Why, Cordelia, you're almost girlish ! '* ob- served Tilly, cheerfully. Cordelia did not seem even to hear this gibe. " It's a letter from Genevieve," she panted, as she hurriedly spread open the sheet of note paper in her hand. " Dear Cordelia, and the whole Club," read Cor- delia, excitedly. " I came up yesterday from New Jersey with the Hardings for two days in New- York. I have been to see the animals at the Zoo all the afternoon, and I'm going to see the Hippo- drome this evening. That sounds like another ani- SIX STAR RANCH mal, but it isn't one, they say. It's a place all lights and music and crowds, and with a stage 'most as big as Texas itself, with scores of real horses and cowboys riding all over it. " I am having a perfectly beautiful time, but I just can't wait to see my own beloved home on the big prairie, and have you all there with me. I sha'n't see it quite so soon though, for father has been delayed about some of his business, and he can't come for me quite so soon as he expected. He says we sha'n't get away from Sunbridge until the fifth; but he's engaged five sections in a sleeper leaving Boston at eight P. M. So we'll go then sure. " Mrs. Harding is calling me. Good-by till I see you. We're coming the third. With heaps of love to everybody, Your own " GENEVIEVE HARTLEY." " Well, I like that," bridled Tilly. " Just think not go until the fifth ! " " Oh, but just think of going at all," comforted Alma Lane, hurriedly; "and in sleepers, too! Sleepers are loads of fun. I rode in one fifty miles, once it wasn't in the night, though." " I rode in one at night ! " Tilly's voice rose dominant, triumphant. " My stars ! " "When?" "Where?" SIX STAR RANCH 23 "What was it like?" "Was it fun?" "Why didn't you tell us?" Tilly laughed in keen enjoyment of the commo- tion she had created. " Don't you wish you knew ? " she teased. " Just you wait and see ! " " Yes, but, Tilly, do they lay you down on a little narrow shelf, really?" worried Cordelia. " I sha'n't take off a single thing, anyhow," an- nounced Bertha, with decision, " not even my shoes. I'm just sure there'll be an accident ! " Tilly laughed merrily. " A fine traveler you'll make, Bertha," she scoffed. " Sleepers are made to sleep in, young lady not to lie awake and worry in, for fear there'll be an accident and you'll lose your shoes. As for you, Cordy, and the shelf you're fretting over there are shelves, in a way; but you lay yourself down on them, my child. Nobody else does it for you." " Thank you," returned Cordelia, a little stiffly. Cordelia did not like to be called " my child " specially by Tilly, who was not quite sixteen, and who was the youngest member of the club. "But, Tilly, are are sleepers nice, daytimes?" asked Edith Wilson, who, as usual, was hovering near. " I should think they'd be lovely for nights but I wouldn't like to have to lie down all day ! " 24 SIX STAR RANCH Tilly laughed so hard at this that Edith grew red of face indeed before Alma patched matters up and made peace. It was the trip to Texas that was the all-absorb- ing topic of discussion that day; and it was the trip to Texas that Cordelia Wilson was thinking of as she walked slowly home that night after leaving the girls at the corner. " I wonder " she began just under her breath ; then stopped short. An old man, known as " Uncle Bill Hodges," stood directly in her path. " Miss Cordelia, I I want to speak to ye, just a minute," he stammered. " Yes, sir." Cordelia smiled politely. The old man threw a suspicious glance over his shoulder, then came a step nearer. " I ain't tellin' this everywhere, Miss Cordelia, and I don't want you to say nothin'. You're goin' to Texas, they tell me." " Yes, Mr. Hodges, I am." Cordelia tried to make her voice sound properly humble, but pride would vibrate through it. " Well, I " The man hesitated, looked around again suspiciously, then blurted out a storm of words with the rush of desperation. "I years ago, Miss Cordelia, I let a man in Boston have a lot of money. He said 'twas goin' into an oil well out in Texas, and that when it came back there'd be a lot more with it a-comin' to me. So I let him have SIX STAR RANCH 25 it. I liked Texas, anyhow I'd been there as a boy." " Yes," nodded Cordelia, smiling as she remem- bered the prairie schooner that was Fred's " boat." " Well, for a while I did get money dividends, he called 'em. Then it all stopped off short. They shut the man up in prison, and closed the office. And there's all my money ! They do be sayin', too, that there ain't no such place as this oil well there that is, not the way he said it was so big and fine and promisin'. Well, now, of course I can't go to see, Miss Cordelia an old man like me, all the way to Texas. But you are goin'. So I thought I'd just ask you to look around a little if you happened to hear anything about this well. Maybe you could go and see it, and then tell me. I've written down the name on this paper," finished the man, thrusting his trembling fingers into his pocket, and bringing out a small piece of not over-clean paper. " Why, of of course, Mr. Hodges," promised Cordelia, doubtfully, as she took the paper. " I'd love to do anything I could for you anything ! Only I'm afraid I don't know much about oil wells, you see. Do they look just like water wells, with a pump or a bucket? Bertha's aunt has one of those on her farm." " I don't know, child, I don't know," murmured the old man, shaking his head sadly, as he turned away. " Sometimes I think there ain't any such 26 SIX STAR RANCH things, anyhow. But you'll do your best, I know. I can trust you!" " Why, of course," returned Cordelia, earnestly, slipping the bit of paper into the envelope of Gene- vieve's letter in her hand. In her own room that night Cordelia Wilson got out her list marked " Things to do in Texas," and studied it with troubled eyes. She had now one more item to add to it and it was already so long ! She had started the list for her own benefit. Then had come the request from queer old Hermit Joe to be on the lookout for his son who had gone years ago to Texas. After that, commissions for others followed rapidly. So many people had so many things they wanted her to do in Texas ! and nobody wanted them talked about in Sunbridge. Slowly, with careful precision, she wrote down this last one. Then, a little dubiously, she read over the list. See the blue bonnet the Texas state flower. Find out if it really is shaped like a bonnet. Bring home a piece of prairie grass. See a real buffalo. * Find Hermit Joe's son, John, who ran away to Texas twenty years ago. See an Osage orange hedge. See a broncho bursted (obviously changed over from "busted"). Find out for Mrs. Miller if cowboys do shoot at SIX STAR RANCH 27 sight, and yell always without just and due provo- cation. See a mesquite tree. Inquire if any one has seen Mrs. Snow's daughter, Lizzie, who ran away with a Texas man named Higgins. Pick a fig. See a rice canal. Find out what has become of Mrs. Granger's cousin, Lester Goodwin, who went to Texas four- teen years ago. See cotton growing and pick a cotton boll, called " Texas Roses." See peanuts growing. Inquire for James Hunt, brother of Miss Sally Hunt. See a real Indian. Look at oil well for Mr. Hodges, and see if there is any there. " Now if I can just fix all those people's names in my mind," mused Cordelia, aloud ; " and seems as if I might there are only four. John Sanborn, Lizzie Higgins, Lester Goodwin, and James Hunt," she chanted over and over again. She was still droning the same refrain when she fell asleep that night. 28 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER III THE COMING OF GENEVIEVE GENEVIEVE was to arrive in Sunbridge at three o'clock on the afternoon of the third of July. Her father was to remain in Boston until one of the evening trains. The Happy Hexagons, knowing Genevieve's plans, decided to give her a welcome be- fitting the club and the occasion. They invited Harold Day, of course, to join them. Harold laughed good-humoredly. " Oh, I'll be there all right, at the station," he assured them. " I've got Mrs. Kennedy's permis- sion to bring her up to the house ; but I don't think I'll join in on your show. I'll let you girls do that." The girls pouted a little, but they were too excited to remain long out of humor. " Don't our dresses look pretty ! I know Gene- vieve'll be pleased/' sighed Elsie Martin, as, long before the train was due that afternoon, the girls arrived at the station. " Of course she'll be pleased," cried Alma Lane. " She can't help it. I can hear her laugh and clap her hands now, when she sees us and hears as ! " A TALL, SLENDER GIRL . . . APPEARED AT A CAR DOOR " SIX STAR RANCH 29 " So can I," echoed Bertha. " And how her eyes will dance! I love to see Genevieve's eyes dance." " So do I," chorused the others, fervently. Sunbridge was a quiet little town in southern New Hampshire near the state line. It had wide, tree-shaded streets, and green-shuttered white houses set far back in spacious lawns. The station at this hour was even quieter than the town, and there were few curious eyes to question the mean- ing of the unusual appearance of five laughing, ex- cited young girls, all dressed alike, and all showing flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. At one minute before three o'clock, a tall, good- looking youth drove up in a smart trap, and was hailed with shouts of mingled joy and relief. " Oh, Harold, we were just sure you were going to be late," cried Cordelia. "Late? Not I to-day!" laughed the boy. Then, with genuine admiration : " Say, that is pretty slick, girls. I'll take off my hat to the Happy Hexagons to-day all right ! " he finished, with an elaborate flourish. " Thank you," twittered Tilly, saucily. " Now don't you wish you had joined us? But then you couldn't have worn a white frock ! " A prolonged bell-clanging and the rumble of an approaching train prevented Harold's reply, and sent the girls into a flutter of excitement. A mo- SIX STAR RANCH ment later they stood in line, waiting, breathless with suspense. They made a wonderfully pretty picture. Each girl was in white, even to her shoes and stockings. Around each waist was a sash of a handsome shade of blue. The same color showed at the throat and on the hair. Quietly they watched the train roll into the sta- tion, and still quietly they stood until a tall, slender girl with merry brown eyes and soft fluffy brown hair appeared at a car door and tripped lightly down the steps to the platform. They waited only till she ran toward them; then in gleeful chorus they chanted : " Texas, Texas, Tex Tex Texas! Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah! GENEVIEVE!" What happened next was a surprise. Genevieve did not laugh, nor cry out, nor clap her hands. Her eyes did not dance. She stopped and fumbled with the fastening of her suit-case. The next minute the train drew out of the station, and the girls were left alone in their corner. Genevieve looked up, at that, and came swiftly toward them. They saw then : the brown eyes were full of tears. The girls had intended to repeat their Texas yell ; but with one accord now they cried out in dismay: SIX STAR RANCH 31 "Genevieve! Why, Genevieve, you're cry- ing!" " I know I am, and I could shake myself," choked Genevieve, hugging each girl in turn spasmodically. " But, Genevieve, what is the matter? " appealed Cordelia. " I don't know, I don't know and that's what's the trouble," wailed Genevieve. " I don't know why I'm crying when I'm so g-glad to see you. But I reckon 'twas that ' Texas ' ! " " But we thought you'd like that," argued Elsie. " I did I do," stammered Genevieve, incoher- ently ; " and it made me cry to think I did I mean, to think I do so much ! " " Well, we're glad you did, or do, anyhow," laughed Harold Day, holding out his hand. " And we're glad you're back again. I've got Jerry here and the cart. This your bag? " ' Yes, right here ; and thank you, Harold," she smiled a little mistily. " And girls, you're lovely just lovely ; and I don't know why I'm crying. But you're to come over straight over to the house this very afternoon. I want to hear that ' T-Texas ' again. I want to hear it six times running ! " she finished, as she sprang lightly into the cart. On the way with Harold, she grew more calm. " You see, once, last fall, I said I hated Sun- bridge, and that I wouldn't stay," she explained a little shame- facedly. 32 SIX STAR RANCH " You said you hated it! " cried Harold. " You never told me that. Why, I thought you liked it here." " I do, now, and I did very soon, specially after I'd met some one I could talk Texas to all I wanted to you, you know ! I reckon I never told you, but you were a regular safety valve for me in those days/' "Was I? "laughed the lad. " Yes, even from that first day," nodded Gene- vieve, with a half-wistful smile. " Did I ever tell you the reason, the real reason, why Aunt Julia called you into the yard that afternoon? " " Why, no not that I know of." Harold's face showed a puzzled frown. " Well, 'twas this. I'd been here a week, and I was so homesick and lonesome for father and the ranch and all. I was threatening to go back. I declared I'd walk back, if there was no other way. Poor Aunt Julia ! She tried everything. Specially she tried to have me meet some nice girls, but I just wouldn't. I said I didn't want any girls that weren't Texas girls. I didn't want anything that wasn't Texas. That's what I'd been saying that very day out under the trees there, when Aunt Julia looked toward the street, saw you, and called you into the yard." " Is that why she introduced me as the boy who was born in Texas ? " laughed Harold. SIX STAR RANCH 33 " Yes ; and you know how I began to talk Texas right away." " But I couldn't help much I left there when I was a baby." " I know, but you'd been there," laughed Gene- vieve, " and that helped. Then, through you, I met your cousin Alma, and the rest was easy, for I al- ways had you for that safety valve, to talk Texas to. You see, it was just that I got homesick. All my life I'd lived on the ranch, and things here were so different. I didn't like to to mind Mrs. Ken- nedy and Miss Jane, very well, I suspect. You see, at the ranch I'd always had my own way, and I liked it." " Well, I'm sure that's natural," nodded Har- old. "I know; but I wasn't nice about it," returned the girl, wistfully. " Father said I must do every- thing everything they said. And I tried to. But Miss Jane had such heaps of things for me to do, and such tiresome things, like dusting and prac- tising, and learning to cook and to sew! And it all was specially hard when you remember that I didn't want to come East in the first place. But I love it here, now ; you know I do. Every one has been so good to me! Aunt Julia is a dear." "And Miss Jane?" queried Harold, eyeing her a little mischievously. Genevieve blushed. 34 SIX STAR RANCH " Miss Jane ? Well, she's 'most a dear, too sometimes. As for Sunbridge I love both the East and the West now. Don't you see? But, to- day, coming up from Boston, I got to thinking about it my dear prairie home ; and how I had hated to leave it, and how now I was going back to it with Aunt Julia and the girls all with me. And I was so happy, so wonderfully happy, that a great big something rose within me, and I felt so so queer, as if I could fly, and fly, and fly! And then, when I saw the girls all dressed alike so prettily, and heard the ' Texas, Texas, Texas ' what did I do ? I didn't do anything but cry cry, Harold, just as if I didn't like things. And the girls were so disappointed, I know they were ! " " Never mind ; I guess you can make them un- derstand anyhow, you have me," said Harold, trying to speak with a lightness that would hide the fact that her words had made him, too, feel " queer." Harold did not enjoy feeling " queer." A moment later they turned into the broad white driveway that led up to the Kennedy home. On the veranda of the fine old house stood a sweet-faced, motherly-looking woman with tender eyes and a loving smile. Near her was a taller, younger woman with eyes almost as interested, and a smile almost as cordial. " You dears both of you ! " cried Genevieve, SIX STAR RANCH 35 running up the steps and into the arms of the two women. " Thank you, Harold," smiled Mrs. Kennedy over Genevieve's bobbing head; " thank you for bringing our little girl home." " As if I wasn't glad to do it! " laughed the boy, gallantly, as he picked up the reins and sprang into the cart. To the horse he added later, when quite out of earshot of the ladies : " Jerry, I'm thinking Genevieve isn't the only one in that house that has ' improved ' since last August. It strikes me that Miss Jane Chick has done a little on her own ac- count. Did you see that smile? That was a really, truly smile, Jerry. Not the ' I-suppose-I-must ' kind!" Genevieve and the two ladies were still on the veranda when the five white-clad girls turned in at the broad front walk. " We came around this way home," announced Tilly. " You said you wanted us." " Want you ! Well, I reckon I do," cried Gene- vieve, springing to her feet. " Come up here this minute ! Now say it say it again that thing you did at the station. I want Aunt Julia to hear it and Miss Jane." The change in Genevieve's voice and manner was unconscious, but it was very evident. No one no- ticed it apparently, however, but Tilly; and she only puckered her lips into an odd little smile as she 36 SIX STAR RANCH formed in line with the other girls: Tilly was not without some experience herself with Miss Jane and her ways. " Now, one, two, three, ready ! " counted Cor- delia, sternly, her face a tragedy of responsibility lest this final triumph of their labors should be any- thing less than the glorious success the occasion de- manded. Once more five eager, girlish countenances faced squarely front. Once more five fresh young voices chanted with lusty precision : " Texas, Texas, Tex Tex Texas! Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah! GENEVIEVE!" s It was finished. Cordelia, with the expression of one from whom the weight of nations has been lifted, drew a happy sigh, and looked confidently about for her reward. Almost at once, however, her face clouded perplexedly. Genevieve was dancing lightly on her toes and clapping her hands softly. Mrs. Kennedy was laughing with her handkerchief to her lips. But Miss Jane Chick Miss Jane Chick was sitting erect, her eyes plainly horrified, her hands clapped to her ears. " Children, children ! " she gasped, as soon as there was a chance for her voice to be heard. " You SIX STAR RANCH 37 don't mean to say that you did that at a public railroad station! " Cordelia looked distressed. The other girls bit their lips and lifted their chins just a little: they did not like to be called " children." " But, Miss Chick," stammered Cordelia, " we didn't think that is, we wanted to do something to welcome Genevieve, and and " Cordelia stopped, and swallowed chokingly. " But to shout like that," protested Miss Chick. :< You young ladies! " The girls bit their lips still harder and lifted their chins still higher : they were not quite sure whether they more disliked to be " children " or " young ladies " in that tone of voice. " Oh, but Miss Jane," argued Genevieve, " you know Sunbridge station is just dead, simply dead at three o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody ever comes on that train, hardly, and there wasn't a soul around but that sleepy Mr. Jones and the station men, and that old Mrs. Palmer. And you know she wouldn't hear a gun go off right under her nose." " Genevieve, my dear ! " murmured Mrs. Ken- nedy but her eyes were twinkling. Cordelia still looked troubled. " I know, Genevieve," she frowned anxiously, " but I never thought of it that way what others would think. Maybe we ought not to have done it, after all. But I'm sure we didn't mean any harm." SIX STAR RANCH Promptly, now, Mrs. Kennedy came to the rescue. " Of course you did not, dear child," she said, smiling into Cordelia's troubled eyes ; " and it was very sweet and lovely of you girls to think of giving Genevieve such a pretty welcome. Oh, of course," she added with a whimsical glance at her sister, " we shouldn't exactly advise you to make a prac- tice of welcoming everybody home in that somewhat startling fashion. That really wouldn't do, you know. Sunbridge station might not be quite so dead next time," she finished, meeting Genevieve's grateful eyes. " That really was dear of you, Aunt Julia," con- fided Genevieve some time later, after the girls had gone, and when she and Mrs. Kennedy were alone together. (Miss Jane had gone up-stairs.) " Only think of the pains they took to get themselves up to look so pretty, besides learning to give that yell so finely. I was so afraid they'd be hurt at what Miss Jane said ! And I wouldn't want them hurt after all that!" " Of course you wouldn't," smiled Mrs. Kennedy; " and my sister wouldn't either, dear." Genevieve stirred restlessly. "I know she wouldn't, Aunt Julia; but but the girls don't know it. They they don't under- stand Miss Jane." SIX STAR RANCH 39 "And do you always?" The question was gently put, but its meaning was unmistakable. Genevieve colored. " Maybe not quite always ; but Miss Jane is so so shockable ! " Mrs. Kennedy made a sudden movement. Ap- parently she only stooped to pick up a small thread from the floor, but when she came upright her face was a deeper red than just that exertion would seem to occasion. " Genevieve, have you been to your room since you came home?" she asked. There were times when Mrs. Kennedy could change the subject almost as abruptly as could Genevieve herself. " No, AuntTJulia. You know Nancy carried up my suit-case, and I've been too busy telling you all about my visit to think of anything else." " Oh/' smiled Mrs. Kennedy. " I was just won- dering." Genevieve frowned in puzzled questioning. " Well, I'm going up right away, anyhow," she said. " Mercy ! I reckon I'll go up right now," she added laughingly, springing to her feet as there came through the open window behind her the sound of a clock striking half-past five. " I had no idea it was so late." Genevieve was not many minutes in her room be- fore she ceased to wonder at Mrs. Kennedy's ques- tioning; for in plain sight on her dressing-table 40 SIX STAR RANCH she soon found a small white box addressed to Gene- vieve Hartley. The box, upon being opened, dis- closed in a white velvet nest a beautiful little chate- laine watch in dark blue enamel and gold. " To keep Genevieve's time. " With much love from " Jane Chick." read Genevieve on the little card that was with the watch. " Oh, oh, oh, how lovely ! " breathed the girl, hovering over the watch in delight. " And to think what I said ! " With a heightened color she turned, tripped across the room and hurried down the hall to Miss Jane's door. "Miss Jane!" "Yes, dear." "May I come in?" " Yes, indeed." "I I want to thank you oh, I do want to thank you, but I don't know how." Genevieve's eyes were misty. " For the watch? You like it, then? " " Like it! I just love it; and I never, never saw such a beauty ! " " I'm glad you like it." There was a moment's pause. Over by the dress- ing-table Miss Jane was carefully smoothing a re- fractory lock of hair into place. She looked so SIX STAR RANCH 41 calm, so self-contained, so far away, thought Genevieve; if it had been Aunt Julia, now! Suddenly the girl gave a little skipping run and enveloped the lady in two wide-flung young arms, thereby ruffling up more than ever the carefully smoothed lock of hair. " Miss Jane, I I've just got to hug you, any- way!" " Why, Genevieve, my dear ! " murmured Miss Jane, a little dazedly. From the door Genevieve called back incoherently the hug had been as short in duration as it had been sudden in action : " I don't think I can be late now, Miss Jane, ever with that lovely thing to keep time for me. And I wanted you to know next year, when I come back, I'm just sure I shall cook and sew beautifully, and do my practising and everything, without once being told. And if I do sprain my ankle I'll be a perfect angel truly I will. And I won't ever keep folks waiting, either, or mercy! there's Nancy's first ring now, and I'm not one bit ready ! " she broke off, as the musical notes of a Chinese gong sounded from the hall below. The next moment Miss Jane was alone with her thoughts and with the lock of hair that she was still trying to smooth. " Dear child ! " smiled the lady. Then she turned abruptly and hastened from the room, her hair still unsmoothed. " I'll just tell Nancy to be a little 42 SIX STAR RANCH slow about ringing that second gong," she mur- mured. When Genevieve came down-stairs to supper that night, she brought with her two books r one a small paper-covered one, the other a larger one bound in dark red leather. " Here's the latest ' Pathfinder ' only I call it ' Pathloser/'' 1 she laughed, handing the smaller book to Miss Jane Chick ; " and here is well, just see what is here," she finished impressively, spread- ing open the leather-covered book before Mrs. Kennedy's eyes. " * Chronicles of the Hexagon Club,' " read Mrs. Kennedy. " Oh, a journal ! " she smiled. " Yes, Aunt Julia. Isn't it lovely? " " Indeed it is ! Who will keep it? " " All of us. We are going to take turns. We shall write a day apiece we six Happy Hexagons of the Hexagon Club." " Do the girls know about it ? " asked Miss Jane. " Not yet. I just thought of it yesterday when I saw the book in the store. Father bought it for the club of course my money was gone long ago at such a time as this" she explained with laugh- ing emphasis. " I'm going to show the book to the girls to-morrow. Won't they be tickled I mean pleased," corrected Genevieve, throwing a hasty glance into Miss Jane's smiling eyes. " I think they will," agreed that lady, pleasantly. SIX STAR RANCH 43 The girls were pleased, indeed, when Genevieve told of her plan and showed the book the next day. But even so entrancing a subject as a journal kept by each in turn could not hold their attention long; for time was very short now, and in every house- hold there were a dozen-and-one last things to be done before the momentous fifth of July. Even the Fourth, with its fun and its firecrackers had no charms for the Happy Hexagons. Of so little con- sequence did they consider it, indeed, that at last one small boy quite lost his patience, " You won't fire my crackers, you won't take me to the picnic, you won't play ball, you won't do any- thing," he complained to his absorbed sister. " I shall be just glad when this old Texas thing is over!" 44 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER IV ON THE WAY ALL the girls' friends came to see them off at the station that fifth of July. " Mercy ! it would never do to spring our Texas yell to-day," chuckled Tilly, eyeing the assembled crowd ; " but wouldn't I like to, though ! " " There's nothing dead about Sunbridge now, sure," laughed Genevieve. " I should say not," declared Harold Day, who had begged the privilege of going to Boston to see them aboard their train for Washington. " For you see," he had argued, " it's to my state, after all, that you are going, so I ought to be allowed to do the honors at this end of the trip as long as I can't at the other ! " They were off at last, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hart- ley, the six girls, and Harold. But what a scram- bling it was, and what a confusion of chatter, laughter, " good-byes," and " write soons " ! In Boston there was a thirty-minute wait in the South Station before their train was due to leave; but long before the thirty minutes were over, the SIX STAR RANCH 45 usually serene face of Mrs. Kennedy began to look flushed and worried. " Genevievc, my dear," she expostulated at last, " can't you keep those flutterbudget girls somewhere near together? It will be time, soon, to take our train, and only Cordelia is in sight. Not even Harold and your father are here I " Genevieve laughed soothingly. "I know, Aunt Julia; but they'll be here, I'm sure. There- s still lots of time," she added, glancing proudly at 1 er pretty new watch. " But where are they all? " " Tilly and Elsie have gone for some soda water, and Bertha for a sandwich at the lunch counter. She said she just couldn't eat a thing before she left home. Alma Lane has gone to a drug store across the street. I don't know where father and Harold are. They went off together, and oh, here they are ! " she broke off in relief, as the two wanderers appeared. " And now," summoned Mr. Hartley, " we'll be off to our car ! Why, where are the rest of us ? " "Well, they they aren't all here," frowned Genevieve, a little anxiously. As at Sunbridge, it was a rush and a scramble at the last. Tilly, Elsie, and Bertha came back, but Genevieve went to look for Alma Lane; and when Alma returned without having seen Genevieve, Harold had to run post-haste for her. 46 SIX STAR RANCH " Sure, dearie," said Mr. Hartley to his daughter, laughingly, when at last he had his charges all in the car, " this is a little worse than trying to corral a bunch of bronchos ! " " Oh, but we won't be so bad again," promised the girl, waving her hand to Harold, who stood alone outside the window, watching them a little wistfully. They had a merry time getting settled, and more than one tired countenance in the car brightened at sight of the six eager young faces. " I couldn't get all five sections together," frowned Mr. Hartley. " I got three here, but the other two are down near the end of the car you know the porter showed you. Do you think we can make them go, some way?" he questioned Mrs. Kennedy, anxiously. " I planned for you to have one of the sections down there by yourself, perhaps, with two of the young ladies in the other. Will that do?" " Of course it will and finely, too," declared the lady. " Genevieve, you and I will go down there and take one of the girls with us perhaps Bertha. That will leave your father for one up here, Elsie and Alma for another, and Tilly and Cordelia for the third." " I knew she'd put you with Cordelia," chuckled Bertha to Tilly, under cover of their scramble to pick out their suit-cases from the pile in which the SIX STAR RANCH 47 porter had left them. " And I'm sure you ought to be," she laughed. " There'll be some hopes then that you'll be kept in order! " " Just look to yourself," retorted Tilly, serenely. " Mrs. Kennedy put you down there near her remember that ! " " I declare, I felt just like an orange," giggled Elsie, " with all that talk about ' sections.' " " I don't see where the shelves are," whispered Cordelia, craning her short little neck to its full extent. "You'll see them all right," promised Tilly. " Just wait till it's dark, then ' The goblins'll get ye if ye don't w r atch out ! ' " she quoted, with mock impressiveness. " I feel as if I were ten years old, and playing house," chirped Alma Lane, as she happily frowned over just the proper place for her bag. " I feel as if it were all a dream, and that I shall wake up right at home," breathed Cordelia. " Seems as if it just couldn't be true that we're really going to Texas! Oh, Genevieve, we can't ever thank you and your father enough," she fin- ished, as Genevieve came up the aisle. "As if we wanted thanks, after what you've done for me ! " cried Genevieve. " Besides, you girls can't be half so glad to go as I am to have you ! " Some time later the porter began to make up the berths. 48 SIX STAR RANCH Tilly nudged Cordelia violently. '' There's shelf number one, Cordy. How do you think you'll like it? " she asked. Cordelia was too absorbed even to notice the hated " Cordy." With wide-eyed, breathless in- terest she was watching the porter. " I think it's the most wonderful thing I ever saw," she breathed in an awe-struck voice. It was after the car was quiet that night that Genevieve, in her upper berth, pulled apart the heavy curtains and peeped out into the long narrow aisle between the swaying draperies. The train was moving very rapidly. The air was heavy and close. The night was an uncomfortably warm one. Genevieve had been too excited to sleep. Even yet it did not seem quite real that the Happy Hexagons were all there with her, and that they were going to her far-away Texas home. With a sigh the girl fell back on her pillow, and tried to coax sleep to come to her. But sleep re- fused to come. Instead, the whole panorama of her Eastern winter unrolled itself before her, peopled with little fairy sprites, who danced with twinkling feet and smiled at her mockingly. " Oh, yes, I know you/' murmured Genevieve, drowsily. " I know you all. You you little black one you're the cake I forgot in the oven, and let burn up. And you're the lessons I didn't learn there are heaps of you! And you you're those SIX STAR RANCH 49 horrid scales I never could catch up with. My, how you run now! And you you little shamed one over in the corner you're the prank I played on Miss Jane. . . . Oh, you can dance now but you won't, by and by I Next year there won't be any of you not a one left. I'm going to be so good, so awfully good ; and I'm not going to ever forget, of to cause anybody any trouble, or - With a start Genevieve sat erect in her berth, fully awake. " Mercy! What a jounce that was! " she cried, just above her breath. " But we seem to be going all right now." Cautiously she parted her curtains and peeped out again. The next instant she almost gave a little shriek: she was looking straight into Bertha Brown's upraised, startled eyes, just below her. " Was that an accident? " chattered Bertha. " I told you there'd be one ! I'm all dressed, anyhow if 'tis!" " Sh-h ! No, goosey," chuckled Genevieve. She would have said more but, at that moment, from up the aisle sounded a sibilant " S-s-s-s ! " They turned to see a somewhat untidy fluff of red hair above a laughing, piquant face. "It's Tilly! 'She's motioning to us. Say, let's go," whispered Genevieve. And cautiously she be- gan to let herself down from her perch. The next moment Bertha, fully dressed, and 50 SIX STAR RANCH Genevieve in her long, dark blue kimono, were trip- ping softly; up the aisle. " Why, you're both down here," exulted Gene- vieve, as she climbed into the lower berth. "Yes; Cordelia was afraid," giggled Tilly, "so I came down." '' Tilly ! I was not," disputed Cordelia, in an indignant whisper. " You came of your own ac- cord." " Pooh ! Tilly's fooling, and we know it/' soothed Bertha, climbing into the berth after Gene- vieve. {( Why, Bertha Brown, you've got your shoes on ! " gasped Tilly, forgetting to whisper. " Of course I have," retorted Bertha. " Do you suppose sh ! " There was a tug at the curtains, and Elsie Mar- tin's round, good-natured face peered in. "Well, I like this," she bridled. "A special meeting of the Hexagon Club, and me not notified ! I heard Genevieve and Bertha giggling in the aisle. Are you all here? " " All but Alma," rejoined Tilly, in an exultant whisper. " Say, get her, too! " " Well, now, if this isn't just a lark," crowed Bertha, gleefully, when the last of the six girls had crowded themselves into the narrow berth. " Ouch ! my head," groaned Genevieve, as a soft thud threw the other girls into stifled laughter. SIX STAR RANCH 51 " Pooh ! I've been hitting my head against the up-stairs flat ever since I went to bed," quoth Elsie. " Isn't it fun ! Now let's talk." "What about?" " Texas, of course," cut in Tilly. " Girls, girls, wouldn't it be glorious to give our Texas yell, though, and see what happened ! " " Tilly ! " gasped the shocked Cordelia. " Oh, I wasn't going to, of course," chuckled Tilly, softly. " I was just imaginin', you know." " But even this I'm not sure we ought " be- gan Cordelia. "No, of course not; you never are, Cordy," agreed Tilly, smoothly. " But let's talk Texas we can whisper, you know. Tell us about Texas, Genevieve," cut in pacifier Alma, hurriedly. " What's it like the ranch?" Genevieve drew a happy sigh. " Why, it's like it's like nothing in Texas, we think," she breathed. " Of course we don't think any other ranch could come up to the Six Star ! " Tilly gave a sudden cry. "The what?" " The Six Star our ranch, you know." " You mean it's named the ' Six Star Ranch ' ? " demanded Tilly. " Sure! Didn't I ever tell you? " retorted Gene- vieve in plain surprise. 52 SIX STAR RANCH Tilly clapped her hands softly. " Did you ! Well, I should say not ! You've al- ways called it just ' the ranch.' And now why, girls, don't you see ? it's our ranch. It couldn't have had a better name if we'd had it built to order. It's the Six Star Ranch and we're the six star girls the Happy Hexagons. And to think we never knew it before ! " There was a chorus of half-stifled exclama- tions of delight; then Cordelia demanded anx- iously : " But, Genevieve, will they be glad to see us, really all your people out there? " " Glad ! I reckon they will be/' averred Gene- vieve, warmly. " The boys will give us a rousing welcome, and there won't be anything too good for Mr. Tim and Mammy Lindy to do." "Who are they?" asked Tilly. " Mr. Tim is the ranch foreman, ' the boss,' the boys call him. He's been with us ever since I can remember, and he's so good to me ! Mammy Lindy is well, Mammy Lindy is a dear ! You'll love Ol' Mammy. She's been just a mother to me ever since my own mother died eight years ago." Gene- vieve's voice faltered a little, then went on more firmly. " She's a negro woman, you know. Her people were slaves, once." " And the boys ? " asked Cordelia, dubi- ously. " Are they your brothers, Genevieve ? " SIX STAR RANCH 53 Genevieve laughed a little more loudly than perhaps she realized. " Brothers ! well, hardly ! The boys are the cowboys on the ranch, you know. My, but they'll give us a welcome! I reckon they'll ride into town to give it, too, in all their war paint. Just you wait till you see the boys and hear them ! " And Gene- vieve laughed again. All in the dark Cordelia looked distinctly shocked ; but, being in the dark, nobody noticed it. " Well, I for one just can't wait," began Tilly, hugging herself with her arms 'about her knees. " Only think, it'll be whole days now before we get there, and " " Young ladies ! " Tilly stopped with a little cry of dismay. A man's voice had spoken close to her ear. " Young ladies," came the mellow tones again. " I begs yo' pardon, but de lady what belongs down in number ten says maybe you done forgot dat dis am a sleepin' car." " Aunt Julia ! " breathed Genevieve. " She's number ten." " She sent the porter," gasped Cordelia. " How how awful ! and you're in my house, too," she almost sobbed. " Now I know we're playing house," tittered Alma Lane, hysterically, as she followed Genevieve out of the berth. 54 SIX STAR RANCH Once more in her own quarters, Genevieve lay back on her pillow with a remorseful sigh. " I don't see why it's so much easier to say you'll never give anybody any trouble than 'tis to do it," she lamented, as she turned over with a jerk. The girls began the " Chronicles of the Hexagon Club " the next morning. Genevieve made the first entry. She dwelt at some length on the confusion of the train-taking, both at Sunbridge and Boston. She also had something to say of Tilly Mack. She gave a full account, too, of the midnight session of the Hexagon Club in Cordelia's berth. " And I'm ashamed that Aunt Julia had to be ashamed of me so soon," she wrote contritely. Cordelia Wilson had agreed to make the second entry in the book; but the heat, the loss of sleep, and the strangeness and excitement added to her distress that " her house " should have been made to seem a disgrace in the eyes of the whole car, all conspired to make her feel so ill that she de- clared she could not think of writing for a day or two. " Very well, then, you sha'n't write ; we'll hand the book to Tilly," said Genevieve, " and then we'll give it to some of the others. But I'll tell you what we will do, Cordelia; you shall make the last entry in the book just before we leave the train at Bolo. And you can make it a sort of retrospect a 're- view lesson ' of the whole, you know." SIX STAR RANCH 55 " But I thought the others won't they each tell their day?" " That's just what they'll tell their day," re- torted Genevieve, whimsically. ' You know what most of them are. Alma Lane would be all right, and would give a true description of everything; only she would go into particulars so, that she would tell everything she saw from the windows, and just what she had to eat all day, down to the last olive." " I know," nodded Cordelia, with a faint smile. " As for Tilly you can't get real sense, of course, from her part. If there's any nonsense go- ing, Tilly Mack will find it and trot it out. Bertha Brown will take up the most of her space by saying ' I always said that ' etc., etc. Bertha is a dear but you know she does just love to say ' I told you so.' Elsie will write clothes, of course. We shall find out what everybody has on when Elsie writes." Cordelia laughed aloud then clapped her hand to her aching head. "You poor dear! What a shame," sympathized Genevieve. " But, Cordelia, why does Elsie think so much of clothes? Mercy! for my part I think they're the most tiresome sort of things to bother with; and it's such a waste of time to be having to change your dress always ! " Cordelia smiled; then her face sobered. 56 SIX STAR RANCH " Poor Elsie ! I'm sorry for Elsie. She does have such an unhappy time over clothes." " Why ? How ? or isn't it fair to tell ? " added Genevieve, with quick loyalty. " Oh, yes, it's fair. Everybody knows it, 'most, and I supposed you did. Elsie herself tells of it. You know she lives with her aunt, Mrs. Gale. Well, Mrs. Gale has three daughters, Fannie, about twenty-one, I guess, and the twins, nineteen; and she just loves to make over their things for Elsie so she does it." " Are they so very poor, then ? " " Oh, no ; they aren't poor at all. I don't think she really has to do it. Aunt Mary says she's just naturally thrifty, and that she loves to make them over. But you see, poor Elsie almost never has a new dress of new material, I mean. Now Elsie loves red; but Fannie wears blue a lot, and the twins like queer shades like faded-out greens and browns which Elsie abhors. Poor Elsie no wonder she's always looking at clothes ! " " Hm-m ; no wonder," nodded Genevieve, her pitying eyes on Elsie far down the aisle Elsie, who, in a mustard-colored striped skirt and pongee blouse, was at that moment trying to perk up the loppy blue bows on a somewhat faded tan straw hat. " Well, anyhow," added Genevieve, with a sigh, " just remember, Cordelia, that you're to do SIX STAR RANCH 57 the last day of the trip in the Chronicles. Now lie down and give your poor head a rest." Long before the last day of the journey came, Cordelia had quite recovered from her headache; but, in accordance with Genevieve's plan, she did not add her share to the Chronicles until the ap- pointed time. Then, with almost a reverent air, she accepted the book and pen from Genevieve's hands, and returned to the seclusion of her seat, rejoicing that Tilly was playing checkers with Bertha, and so would not, presumably, disturb her for a time, at least. " To-day, at noon, w r e are to arrive at Bolo," she wrote a little unevenly; then with a firmer hand she went on. " Genevieve says this ought to be a retrospect, and touch lightly upon the whole trip; so I will try to make it so. " It has been a beautiful journey. Nothing seri- ous has happened, though Bertha has worn her shoes all the time expecting it. The best thing, so far, was our lovely day in Washington that Mr. Hartley gave us, and the President. (I mean, we saw him and he smiled.) And the worst thing (except that first night in my berth that Genevieve wrote of) was the time we lost Tilly for three whole hours, and Mrs. Kennedy got so nervous and white and frightened. We supposed, of course, she had fallen off, or jumped off, or got left off at some station. 58 SIX STAR RANCH But just as we were talking with the porter about telegraphing everywhere, she danced in with two very untidy, unclean little Armenian children. It seems she had been in the emigrant car all the time playing with the children and trying to make the men and women talk their queer English. I never knew that gentle Mrs. Kennedy could speak so sharply as she did then to Tilly. " And now since Tuesday, some time we have regally been in Texas. Some things look just like Eastern things, but others are so strange and queer. It is very hot I mean, very warm, too. But then, we have just as warm days in Sunbridge, I guess. The windmills look so queer there are such a lot of them ; but they look pretty, too. Some of the towns are very pretty, also, with their red roofs and blue barns and houses. Genevieve says lots of them are German villages. " In some places lots of things are growing, but in others it is all just gray and bare-looking with nothing much growing except those queer prairie- dog cities with the funny little creatures sitting on top of their houses, or popping down into their holes only to turn around and look at you out of their bright little eyes. We had a splendid chance to see them once when our train stopped right in the middle of a prairie for a long time. We got of! and walked quite a way with Mr. Hartley. I saw a rattlesnake, and I'm afraid I screamed. I SIX STAR RANCH 59 screamed again when the horrid thing wiggled into one of the dog houses. Mr. Hartley says they live together sometimes, but if I were that dog he wouldn't live with me! " We have seen lots of cattle and goats and hogs though Tilly says she hasn't seen any of the latter under any gate yet. I have seen a mesquite 1 tree (so I have done one of my things), and it does have thorns. We are on another prairie now, and oh, how big it is, and such a lot of grass as there is on it just as far as you can see, grass, grass, grass ! I guess there won't be any danger of my not having plenty of that to take home. I have seen lots of men on horseback, but I don't know whether they were cowboys or not. They did not shoot, any- way, but some of them did yell. " Gene vie ve says cowboys are to meet us, and that probably they will come away to Bolo in full war paint. I thought it was only Indians who painted except silly ladies, of course and I was going to say so; but Tilly was there, so I didn't like to. Of course I ought not to mind the cow- boys if Genevieve likes them, and they are her friends; but I can't help remembering what Mrs. Miller told me about their ' shooting up towns ' in a very dreadful way when they were angry. I hope none of the men I want to find will turn out to be cowboys." (Here there were signs of an attempted erasure, but the words still stood, and immediately 60 SIX STAR RANCH after them came another sentence. ) " That is, I mean I should hate to find that any friends of mine had become cowboys. " I have just been reading over what I have writ- ten, and I am disappointed in it. I am sure I ought to have mentioned a great many things about which I have been silent. But there were so many things, and they all crowded at once before me, so that I had to just touch on the big things and the tall things like windmills, for instance. " We are getting nearer Bolo now, and I must stop and eat some luncheon, Genevieve says, as we sha'n't have anything else till supper on the ranch. Oh, I am so excited! Seems as if I couldn't draw a breath deep enough. And the idea of trying to eat when I feel like this ! " SIX STAR RANCH 61 CHAPTER V THE BOYS PREPARE A WELCOME ON the back gallery of the long, low ranch house, the boys were waiting for Teresa to ring the bell for supper. Comfortably they lolled about on ham- mocks, chairs, and steps, with their shirts open at the neck and plentifully powdered with the dust of the corral. From the doorway, Tim Nolan, the ranch fore- man, spoke to them hurriedly. " See here, boys, I'm right sorry, but I've got to see Benson to-morrow about those steers. That means that I've got to go as far as Bolo to-night, and that I sha'n't be back in time to start with the rest of you to meet the folks. But I'll see you in Bolo day after to-morrow at noon. The train is due then. Now be on hand, all of you that can. We want Miss Genevieve and her friends to have a right royal welcome. I reckon now I'd better be off. So long! Now remember day after to- morrow at noon ! " he finished, turning away. " As if we'd be a-forgettin' it," grinned Long John, a tall, lank fellow sprawled in a hammock, 62 SIX STAR RANCH " when the little mistress hain't set her pretty foot on the place since last August ! " " If only she wa'n't bringin' all them others," groaned the short, sandy-haired man on the steps. " I'd just like to rope the whole bunch and send 'em back East again, old lady and all all but the little mistress, of course. Boys, what are we a-goin' to do with an old lady even though she ain't so awful old and five torn-fool girls on the Six Star Ranch?" " Ees not the Senorita a gurrl, also ? " laughed a dark-eyed Mexican from his perch on the gallery railing. "Eh, Reddy?" " Sure, Pedro," retorted the sandy-haired man, testily. (Pedro was the only Mexican cowboy at the ranch, and even he was barely tolerated.) " But the little mistress ain't no tenderfoot girl. She don't howl at a rattlesnake nor jump at a prairie dog; and she knows how to ride, and which end of a gun goes off!" There was a general laugh, followed by a long silence the boys did not usually talk so much to- gether, but to-night a curious restlessness pervaded them all. Suddenly the tall man in the hammock pulled himself erect. " Look a-here, boys, that's jest it," he began in a worried voice. " What if the little mistress has changed? What if she hain't no use for us and the ranch any more? I never told ye, but at the first, SIX STAR RANCH last August, 'fore she went away, I heard the boss and Mr. Hartley a-talkin'. They was sayin' she'd got to go East to learn 'how to live like a lady should to know girls, and books, and all that. They said she was runnin' wild here with only us for playmates, and that they had just got ter pas- ture her out where the grass was finer, and the fences nearer tergether." " Did they say that ? " gasped half a dozen worried voices. " They sure did and more. They said two real ladies was a-goin' ter take her and make her like themselves a lady. And, boys, I was won- derin' how is a lady goin' ter like us, and the ranch?" There was a moment's tense silence. The boys were staring, wide-eyed and appalled, into each other's faces. From somewhere came a deep sigh. "Gorry! she can't, she just can't, after all her book-learnin' and culturin'/' groaned a new voice. For a time no one spoke ; then Reddy cleared his throat. " Look a-here, there ain't but jest one thing to do. If she don't like the ranch and us we'll jest have to make the ranch and us so she will like 'em." " How? " demanded a skeptical chorus. 64 SIX STAR RANCH " Slick 'em up and us," retorted the sandy- haired man, with finality. " I was raised East, and I know the sort of doin's they hanker after. To- morrow mornin' we'll begin. I'll show you; you'll see," he finished in a louder tone, as Teresa's clang- ing supper bell sent them in a stampede through the long covered way that led to the dining-room which, with the cook room, occupied the large, low building thirty feet to the rear of the ranch house. When Tim Nolan arrived at the Bolo station a little before noon two days later, he stared in open- mouthed wonder at the sight that greeted his eyes. In a wavering, straggling line stood ten stiff, red- faced, miserable men, dressed in what was, to Tim Nolan, the strangest assortment of garments he had ever seen. Two of the men were in dead black, from head to foot. Four wore stiff, not over-clean white shirts. Six sported flaming red neckties. One had un- earthed from somewhere a frock coat three sizes too small for him, which he wore very proudly, however, over a flannel shirt adorned with a red- and-green silk handkerchief knotted at the throat. Another displayed a somewhat battered silk hat. But, whatever they wore, each showed a face upon which hope, despair, pride, shame, and physical misery were curiously blended. For an instant Tim Nolan peered at them with SIX STAR RANCH 65 unrecognizing eyes; then he gave a low ejacula- tion. " Reddy ! Carlos ! Jim ! Boys ! " he gasped. "What in the world is the meaning of this?" " Eet ees that we welcome the little Senorita an' her frien's," bowed Pedro, doffing his sombrero which was the only part of his usual costume that he had retained. " But I don't understand," demurred the fore- man ; " these rigs of yours ! Reddy, where in time did you corral that coat ? " Reddy shifted from one uneasy foot to the other. " Pedro's told you we're here to welcome the little mistress, of course. We've slicked up. We we didn't want the shock too sudden from the East, you know." For another moment Tim Nolan stared; then he threw back his head and laughed laughed till the faces of the men before him grew red with something more than discomfort. At that moment a pretty young girl in khaki and a cowboy hat made her appearance astride a frisky little mustang. She wore a cartridge belt about her waist though there was no revolver in her holster. "Is Genevieve coming to-day, sure?" she called out joyfully. " I heard she was, and I've come to meet her." " There, boys," bantered the ranch foreman, " now here's a young lady who knows how to wel- 66 SIX STAR RANCH come the mistress of the Six Star Ranch ! " Then, to the girl : " Sure, Miss Susie, we do expect Gene- vieve, and we're here to welcome her, as you see," he finished with a sweep of his broad-brimmed hat. It looked, for a moment, as if the wavering, strag- gling men would break ranks and run; but a sud- den distant whistle, and a sharp command from Reddy brought them right about face. " Buck up, boys," he ordered sharply. " I reckon the little mistress ain't a-goin' ter turn us down! She'll like it. You'll see!" The train had scarcely come to a stop before Genevieve _was off the car steps. " Mr. Tim, Mr. Tim here I am ! Oh, how good you look ! " she cried, holding out both her hands. A minute later she turned to introduce the embarrassed foreman to Mrs. Kennedy and the girls, who, with her father, were following close at her heels. This task was not half completed, however, when she spied the red-faced, anxious-eyed men. As Mr. Tim had done, she stared dumbly for a moment; then, leaving the rest of the introductions to her father, she ran toward them. " Why, it's the boys our boys ! Carlos, Long John, Reddy ! But what is the matter ? How queer you look! Is anybody sick or >dead?" she stammered, plainly in doubt what to say. " Sure, it's for you we're a-welcomin' you," SIX STAR RANCH 67 exploded Long John, jerking at his collar which was obviously too small for him. Genevieve's face showed a puzzled frown. " But these clothes ! why are you like this ? and after all I've promised the girls about you, too ! " " You mean you don't like it this ? " de- manded Reddy, incredulous hope in his eyes and voice. " Of course I don't like it! I've been promising the girls all the way here that you'd give them a welcome that was a welcome ! And now but why did you do it, boys ? " Long John drew himself to his full height. "Why? 'Cause Reddy said to," he answered. " Reddy said we'd better ease up on the shock it would be to you here, after all you'd been used to back East fine clothes, fine feed, and fine doin's all around, to say nothin' of books and learnin' in between times; so we we tried to break ye in easy. That's all," he finished, a little lamely. " And then these clothes mean that?" de- manded the girl. Long John nodded dumbly. Genevieve gave a ringing laugh, but her eyes grew soft as she extended her hand to each man in turn. " What old dears you are every one of you ! " she exclaimed. " Now go home quick, and get comfortable." She would have said more, but some 68 SIX STAR RANCH one called her and she turned abruptly. Cordelia Wilson, looking half frightened, half exultant, but wholly excited, was pulling at her sleeve. " Genevieve, Genevieve, quick," she was panting; " is that a cowboy that, over there talking to,* your father ? " ; Genevieve turned with a wondering frown. The next moment she burst into a merry laugh. " Oh, Cordelia, Cordelia, you will be the death of me, yet! No, that isn't a cowboy. It's Susie Bill- ings. She lives on a ranch near here." " A girl dressed like that and carrying a revolver ! Just a common ' Susie ! ' " gasped Cor- delia. " Yes just a common ' Susie/ ' twinkled Genevieve. " But I thought she was a a cowboy," quavered Cordelia. " You said they'd be here in in all their war paint! " From behind them sounded a muffled snort and a low-voiced : " Boys, she thinks that's a cowboy ! Come on say we show 'em ! Eh ? " Genevieve laughed softly at what Cordelia had' said, and at the disappointment in her voice. "Cowboys? Well, they are here," she acknowl- edged with twitching lips, " and in their war paint, too of a kind ! They're right here Why, they're gone'' she broke off. " Never mind," she SIX STAR RANCH laughed, as she caught sight of a silk hat and a black coat hurrying toward a group of saddled ponies. " I reckon you'll see all the cowboys you want to before you go back East again. Now come up and meet Susie and she hasn't, really, any revolver there, Cordelia, in spite of that cartridge belt and holster. She's always rigging up that way. She likes it!" Susie proved to be " a girl just like us," as Cor- delia amazedly expressed it to Alma Lane. She was certainly a very pleasant one, they all decided. But even Susie could not keep their eyes from wan- dering to the unfamiliar scene around them. It was a bare little station set in the midst of a bare little prairie town, and quite unlike anything the Easterners had ever seen before. Broad, dusty streets led seemingly nowhere. Low, straggling houses stretched out lazy lengths of untidiness, ex- cept where a group of taller, more pretentious build- ings indicated the stores, a hotel or two, several boarding houses, and numerous saloons and dance halls. From the station doorway, a blanketed Indian looked out with stolid, unsmiling face. Leaning against a post a dreamy-eyed Mexican in tight trousers, red sash, and tall peaked hat, smoked a cigarette. Halfway down the platform a tired- looking man in heavy cowhide boots and rough clothes, watched beside a huge canvas-topped wagon 70 SIX STAR RANCH beyond which could be seen the switching tails of six great oxen. " There's Fred's ' boat/ " remarked Bertha, laughingly, to Cordelia. "Where? What? Cordelia had been trying to look in all directions at once. " That prairie schooner down there." " Now that looks like the pictures," asserted Cordelia. " I wonder if the cowboys will.'* " I declare, the whole thing is worse than a three- ring circus," declared Tilly, aggrievedly, to Gene- vieve. " I simply can't see everything! " " All aboard for the ranch," called Mr. Hartley, leading the way around to the other side of the station; and like a flock of prairie chickens, as Genevieve put it, they all trooped after him. " Why, what funny horses ! " cried Tilly, as Mr. Hartley stopped before a large, old-fashioned three- seated carriage drawn up to the platform. At Genevieve's chuckling laugh, Tilly threw a sharper glance toward the two gray creatures at- tached to the carriage. " Why, they aren't horses at all yes, they are no, they aren't, either ! " " I always heard young ladies were a bit change- able," grinned Tim Nolan, mischievously; "but do they always change their minds as often as that, Miss?" " Yes, they do when the occasion demands it," SIX STAB RANCH 71 retorted Tilly, with a merry glance ; and Tim Nolan laughed appreciatively. " Well, they aren't horses," smiled Mr. Hartley, as he gave his hand to help Mrs. Kennedy into the carriage. " They happen to be mules. Now, Miss Tilly, if you'll come in here with Mrs. Kennedy, we'll put two other young ladies and myself in the other two seats, and leave Genevieve to do the honors in one of the ranch wagons with the rest of you. The baggage, the boys are already putting in the other wagon, I see," he added, looking back to where two men were busy with a pile of trunks and bags. " They'll come along after us. Mr. Tim is on his horse, of course. We'll let him show us the way. Now stow yourselves comfortably," he ad- monished his guests. " You know we have an eighteen-mile ride ahead of us ! " 72 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER VI CORDELIA SEES A COWBOY THROUGH the broad, dusty streets, by the strag- gling houses, and out on to the boundless sea of grass trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons, with Mr. Tim in the lead. Five pairs of eyes grew wide with wonder and awe. " I didn't suppose anything in the world could be so so far," breathed Cordelia, who was with Mr. Hartley on the front seat of the carriage. " No wonder Genevieve was always talking about ' space, wide, wide space,' " cried Bertha. " Why, it's just like the ocean only more so, because there aren't any waves." " As if anything could be more like the ocean than the ocean itself," giggled Tilly. Mr. Hartley laughed good-naturedly. " Never mind, Miss Bertha," he nodded. " Just you wait till there's a little more wind, and you'll see some waves, I reckon. It's mighty still just now; and yet there, look! Over there to the right see?" SIX STAR RANCH 73 They all looked, and they all saw. They saw far in the distance the green change to gray, and the gray to faint purple, and back again to green, while curious shifting lights and shadows glancing across the waving blades of grass, made them ripple like water in the sunlight. At the same time, from somewhere, came a soft, cool wind. " Why, it is it is just like the ocean," exulted Cordelia. " I've seen it look like that down to Nan- tasket, 'way, 'way off at sea." " I told you 'twas," triumphed Bertha. " Well, anyway," observed Tilly, demurely, " they must be awfully dry waves not much fun to jump ! " " Tilly, how can you ? " protested Cordelia. " How you do take the poetry out of anything ! I believe you'd take the poetry out of of Shake- speare himself ! " " Pooh ! Never saw much in him to take out," shrugged Tilly. "Tilly!" gasped Cordelia. " Tilly can't see poetry in anything that doesn't jingle like ' If you love me as I love you, no knife can cut our love in two,' " chanted Bertha. " My dears ! " remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, feebly. Tilly turned with swift pacification. " Don't you worry, Mrs. Kennedy. I'm used to it. They can't trouble me any ! " 74 SIX STAR RANCH It was Mr. Hartley who broke the silence that followed. "Well, Miss Cordelia," he asked laughingly, " what is the matter ? You've been peering in all directions, and you look as if you hadn't found what you were hunting for. You weren't expect- ing to find soda fountains and candy stores on the prairie, were you ? " Cordelia smiled and shook her head. " Of course not, Mr. Hartley ! I was looking for the blue bonnets the flowers, you know. Gene- vieve said they grew wild all through the prairie grass." " And so they do specially, early in the spring, my dear. I wish you could see them, then." " I wish I could Genevieve has told me so much about them. She says they're the state flower. I thought they had such a funny name; I wanted to pick one, if I could. She says they're lovely, too." : ' They are, indeed, and I wish you could see them when they are at their best," rejoined Mr. Hartley; then he turned to Bertha, who had been listening with evident interest. " In the spring it's a blue ocean, Miss Bertha I wish you could see the wind sweep across it then! And I wish you could smell it, too," he added with a laugh. "I reckon you wouldn't think it much like your salty, fishy east wind," he finished, twinkling. SIX STAR RANCH 75 " Oh, but we just love that salty, fishy east wind, every time we go near the shore," retorted a chorus of loyal Eastern voices; and Mr. Hartley laughed again. In the ranch wagon behind them, Genevieve was doing the honors of the prairie right royally. Here, there, and everywhere she was pointing out some- thing of interest. In the ranch wagon, too, the marvelous hush and charm of limitless distance had wrought its own spell; and all had fallen silent. It was Alma Lane who broke the pause. >l What are all those deep, narrow paths, such a lot of them, running parallel to the wheel tracks ? " she asked curiously. " I've been watching them ever since we left Bolo. They are on both sides, too." : ' They're made by the cattle," answered Gene- vieve ; " such a lot of them, you know, traveling single file on their way to Bolo. Bolo is a ' cow town ' that is, they ship cattle to market from there." " Poor things," sighed Elsie, sympathetically. " I saw some yesterday from the train. I thought then I never wanted to eat another piece of beef- steak and I adore beefsteak, too." Genevieve sobered a little. " I know it; I know just how you feel. I hate that part but it's business, I suppose. I reckon I hate business, anyhow but I love the ranch! I can't get used to the branding, either." 76 SIX STAR RANCH " What's that? " asked Elsie. Genevieve shook her head. A look of pain crossed her face. " Don't ask me, Elsie, please. You'll find out soon enough. Branding is business, too, I sup- pose but it's horrid. Mammy Lindy says that the first time I saw our brand on a calf and realized what it meant and how it got there, I cried for hours for days, in fact, much of the time." " Why, Genevieve," cried Elsie, wonderingly. " How dreadful ! What is a brand ? I thought ' brand ' meant the kind of coffee or tea one drank." Alma frowned and threw a quick look into Gene- vieve's face. "What a funny little town Bolo is!" she ex- claimed, with a swift change of subject. " I de- clare, it looked 'most as sleepy as Sunbridge." " Sleepy ! " laughed Genevieve, her face clearing, much to Alma's satisfaction. " You should see Bolo when it's really awake say when some association of cattlemen meet there. And there's going to be one next month, I think. There's no end of fun and frolic and horse-racing then, with everybody there, from the cowboys and cattle-kings to the trappers and Indians. You wouldn't think there was anything sleepy about Bolo then, I reckon," nodded Genevieve, gayly. " Genevieve, quick look ! off there," cried Elsie, excitedly. SIX STAR RANCH 77 " Some more of Fred's ' boats ' three of them this time," laughed Alma, her eyes on the three white-topped wagons glistening in the sunlight. " Boats ? " questioned Genevieve. " That's what little Fred Wilson told us we were going to ride in," explained Alma. " He said they had prairie schooners here, and schooners were boats, of course." Genevieve laughed merrily. " I wish Fred could see these ' boats,' " she said. " Well, I don't know ; I feel as if they were boats," declared Alma, stoutly. " I'm sure I don't think anybody on the ocean could be any more glad to see a sail than I should be to see one of these, if I were a lonely traveler on this sea of grass ! " "But where are they going?" questioned Elsie. " I don't know nor do they, probably," re- joined Genevieve, with a quizzical smile. >l They're presumably emigrants hunting up cheap land for a new home. There used to be lots of them, Father says ; but there aren't so many now. See they're going to cross our way just ahead of us. We'll get a splendid view of them." Nearer and nearer came the curiously clumsy, yet curiously airy-looking wagons. Sallow-faced women looked out mournfully, and tow-headed children peeped from every vantage point. Brawny, but weary-looking men stalked beside their teams. " Look at the men walking! " cried Elsie. 78 SIX STAR RANCH " They're ' bull-whackers,' " nodded Genevieve, mischievously. " Bull-whackers!" " Yes, because their teams happen to be oxen ; if they were mules, now, they'd be * mule-skin- ners.' " " Is that what you are, then ? " asked Elsie, with a demureness that rivaled Tilly's best efforts. " You're driving mules, you know." "Well, you better not call me that," laughed Genevieve. " See, they've stopped to speak to Father. I reckon we'll have to stop, too." " I ' reckon ' we shall," mimicked Elsie, good- naturedly. " They've got all their household goods and gods in those wagons," said Genevieve, musingly. " I can see a tin coffeepot hanging straight over one woman's head." " I shouldn't think they had anything but chil- dren," laughed Alma, as from every wagon there tumbled a scrambling, squirming mass of barefoot legs, thin brown arms, and touseled hair above wide, questioning eyes. Long minutes later, from the carriage, Cordelia Wilson followed with dreamy eyes the slow-receding wagons, now again upon their way. " I feel just like ' ships that pass in the night,' ' she murmured. " I don't. I feel just like supper," whispered SIX STAR RANCH 79 Tilly. Then she laughed at the frightened look Cordelia flung at Mr. Hartley. On and on through the shimmering heat, under the cloudless sky, trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons. Mr. Tim had long ago galloped out of sight. It was when they were within five miles of the ranch that Cordelia, looking far ahead, saw against the horizon a rapidly growing black speck. For some time she watched it in silence ; then, suddenly, she became aware that, large as was the speck now, it had broken into other specks bobbing, shifting specks that promptly became not specks at all, but men on horseback. Spasmodically she clutched Mr. Hartley's arm. " What are those ? " she questioned, with dry lips. Mr. Hartley gave an indifferent glance ahead. " Cowboys, I should say," he answered. Cordelia caught her breath. At that moment a shot rang out, then another, and another. Mr. Hartley looked up now, sharply, a little angrily. The indifference was quite gone from his face. It was then that Genevieve's voice came clear and strong from the wagon behind. " It's the boys, Father our boys ! " she called. " I know it's the boys. I told them I'd promised the girls a welcome, and they're giving it to us ! " 80 SIX STAR RANCH " By George ! it is our boys," breathed Mr. Hart- ley. And the scowl on his face gave way to a broad smile. " Is it really all fun ? " quavered Cordelia, breathlessly. " Every bit," Mr. Hartley assured her. And then though still breathlessly Cordelia gave herself up to the excitement of the moment. They were all about them soon those lithe, supple figures, swaying lightly, or sitting superbly erect in their saddles. From the top of their broad- brimmed hats to the tips of their high-heeled cow- boy boots they were a wonder and a joy to the amazed eyes of Cordelia. With stirrups so long the chains clanked musically, they galloped back and forth, shouting, laughing, and shooting wildly into the air. With their chaparejos, or leather overalls, their big revolvers, their spurs, their bright silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their necks over the open collar of their flannel shirts, they made a brave show, indeed. Nor was the least of the wonders about them the graceful swirls of loosely- coiled lariats hanging from the horns of their sad- dles. After all, it lasted only a minute before the re- volvers were thrust into the waiting holsters, and before the men, bareheaded, were making a sweep- ing bow from their saddles. It was Genevieve who led the clapping. SIX STAR RANCH 81 " Oh, boys, thank you ! That was fine just fine ! " she crowed. " Now I reckon Cordelia thinks she has seen a cowboy all right! " And Cordelia did. A little white, but bravely smiling, she was sitting erect, apparently serene. And only Mr. Hartley knew that one of her hands was clutched about his arm in a grasp that actually hurt. " They did that all that shooting and yelling just for a joke, then?" she asked Mr. Hartley, a little later. " Only that. They were giving you a welcome to the Six Star Ranch." " Then they don't act like that all the time? " " Hardly!" laughed the man. "I reckon they wouldn't get much work done if they did." Cordelia drew a relieved sigh. Her eyes, a little less fearful, rested on the erect figure of the nearest cowboy, just to the right of the carriage. " I'm so glad," she murmured. " I'll tell Mrs. Miller. She thought they did, you know yell al- ways without just and due provocation, and shoot at sight." The man's lips twitched; but the next moment they grew a bit stern at the corners. " That's exactly it, Miss Cordelia exactly the idea that some people have of the boys, and I'll grant that when they they drink too much whiskey, they aren't exactly what you might call SIX STAR RANCH peaceable, desirable companions though three- fourths of their antics then are caused by reckless high spirits rather than by real ugliness with ex- ceptions, of course. But when sober they are quiet, straightforward, generous-hearted good fellows, hard-working and honest; certainly my boys are." Mr. Hartley hesitated, then went on, still gravely. " There's just as much difference in ranches, of course, Miss Cordelia, as there is in folks; and all the ranches are changing fast, anyway, nowadays. Lots of the owners are quitting living on them at all. They've gone into the towns to live. On the Six Star the boys take their meals with the family; and in many places they don't do that, I know, even where the owner lives on the ranch. Our boys are very loyal to us, and very much interested in all that concerns us. They fairly worship Genevieve, and have, all the way up." "I'm so glad," murmured Cordelia, again; and this time there was a look very much like admira- tion in the eyes that rested on Long John just ahead. It was some time later that Mr. Hartley said, half turning around : " Look straight ahead, a little to the right, young ladies, and you'll get a very good view of the Six Star Ranch." " Oh, and you've got a windmill," cried Tilly. " I can see it against the sky ; I know I can ! ' ? SIX STAR RANCH 83 " Yes, we've got a windmill," nodded Mr. Hart- ley. " I love windmills," exulted Cordelia. " So does Genevieve," observed Mr. Hartley, raising his eyebrows a little. Only Cordelia noticed the odd smile he gave as he spoke, and she did not know what it meant. Later, however, she remembered it. She was too much excited now to think of anything but the fact that the Six Star Ranch was so near. Bertha craned her neck to look ahead. " Only think, we haven't passed a house, not a house since we left Bok>," she cried. Mr. Hartley smiled. " You see, Miss Bertha, Bolo, eighteen miles away, is our nearest neighbor; and you'll have to go even farther than that in any other direction to strike another neighbor." " My stars ! " gasped Bertha. " How awful lone- some it must be, Mr. Hartley." " Anyhow, you can't be much bothered with neighbors running in to borrow two eggs and a little soda, can you? " giggled Tilly. "No; that isn't one of the difficulties we have to deal with," smiled Mr. Hartley; but Bertha bridled visibly. " Well, really, Tilly Mack," she exclaimed in pre- tended anger, " I should like to know if you mean anything special! You see," she added laughingly 84 SIX STAR RANCH to Mr. Hartley, " I happen to live next to Tilly, myself!" From both carriage and wagon, now, came a babel of eager chatter. There was so much to be seen on the one hand, so much to be explained on the other. The buildings and corrals were plainly visible by this time, and each minute they became more clearly defined. " Do you mean that all that belongs to just one ranch ? " demanded Tilly. "Sure!" twinkled Mr. Hartley. "You see, if folks can't borrow of us, we can't borrow of them, either ; so it's rather necessary that we have all the comforts of home ourselves." " Well, I guess you've got them," laughed Tilly, looking wonderingly about her. " I reckon we have," nodded Mr. Hartley, as he began to point out one and another of the buildings. There was the long, low ranch house facing the wide reach of the prairie. Behind it, and connected with it by a covered way, were the dining room and the cook room. Beyond that was the long bunk house where the men slept, flanked by another build- ing for the Mexican servants. There were stables, , sheds, a storehouse and saddle-room, and a black- smith's shop. Below the house an oblong bit of fenced ground showed a riot of color Genevieve's flower garden. Below that was a vegetable garden. There was a large corral for the cattle, and a smaller SIX STAR RANCH 85 one, high and circular, for the horses. There were three or four green trees near the house tall, thin cottonwoods that had grown up along the slender streams of waste water from the windmill. 86 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER VII THE RANCH HOUSE " AND here we are at the Six Star Ranch," cried Mr. Hartley, as he leaped from the carriage before the wide-open door of the ranch house. " Well, Mammy Lindy," he added, as the kindly, wrinkled old face of a colored woman appeared in the door- way, " I've corralled the whole bunch and brought them West with me ! " A little stiffly the girls got down from their seats all but Genevieve. She, in the space of a breath, seemingly, had leaped to the ground and run up on to the wide gallery where the negress, with adoring eyes, awaited her. " Laws, chil'e," Tilly, who was nearest, heard a tenderly crooning voice say, " but I am jes' pow'ful glad to see ye, honey ! " " Mammy, you old darling ! " cried Genevieve, giving the rotund, gayly-clad figure a bear-like hug. ' You look just as good as you used to and my, my! just see all this new finery to welcome me," she added, holding off her beaming-faced old nurse at arms' length. " I reckon you'll think something has come, Mammy Lindy, when we all get settled," she SIX STAR RANCH 87 added laughingly, as she turned to present the old woman to Mrs. Kennedy and the girls. A little later, Tilly, in the wide, center hallway, was looking wonderingly about her. " Well, Genevieve Hartley, I didn't think you could have room enough for us all," she de- clared ; " but I'll give it up. I should think you might entertain the whole state of Texas in this house!" " We try to, sometimes," laughed Genevieve. " You know we Texans pride ourselves on always having room for everybody." " Well, I should think you did and, only think, all on one floor, too ! " Genevieve did not answer. She was looking around her with a thoughtful little frown between her eyebrows as if she saw something she did not quite understand. The girls were standing in the wide center hall- way that ran straight through the house. On one side, through a wide archway, could be seen a large living-room with piano, bookshelves, comfortable chairs, a couch, and a good-sized table. Beyond that there was a narrow hall with two large rooms leading from it. From the other side of the center hall opened another narrow hall at right angles, from which led the six remaining rooms of the house. " This is more fun than getting settled in the 88 SIX STAR RANCH sleepers*" declared Elsie Martin, as Genevieve be- gan to fly about arranging her guests. The boys made quick work of bringing in the trunks and bags; and then for a brief half-hour there was quiet while eight pairs of hurried hands attempted to remove part of the dust of travel and to unearth fresh blouses and clean linen from long- packed trunks. It was a hungry, merry crowd, a little later, that trooped through the long covered way leading to the dining-room. " Now I know why this house has got so much room in it," declared Tilly. " We could have room in the East if we banished our dining-rooms and kitchens and pantries to the neighbors like this!" Genevieve did not answer. They had reached the long narrow room with the big table running lengthwise of it. Only one end of the table was set with places for eight. "Why, where are the boys?" questioned Gene- vieve. Mammy Lindy shook her head. " Dey ain't here, chil'e." " But, Mammy, you are mistaken. They are here. They came home with us." * Yas'm, dey done come home, sure 'nuf, but dey ain't eat in' now, honey." "Why not?" SIX STAR RANCH 89 Again the old woman shook her head. She did not answer. She turned troubled eyes first on the two young Mexican maids by the doorway, then on Mr. Hartley. " Father, do you know what this means ? " de- manded Genevieve. " No, dearie, I must say I don't," frowned Mr. Hartley. " Then I shall find out," avowed the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. " Mammy Lindy, please seat my guests, and have the supper served right away. I'll find Mr. Tim." " But, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, gently, " wouldn't it be better if you ate your own supper first with your guests ? " Genevieve shook her head. Her face flushed painfully. " I know, Aunt Julia, of course, what you mean. You don't think it's civil in me to run off like this. But it's the boys something is the matter. They always eat with us. Why, they may be thinking we don't want them, Aunt Julia. Please, please excuse me, everybody," she entreated, as she ran from the room. Halfway to the bunk house Genevieve met the ranch foreman. " Why, Mr. Tim, supper is ready. Didn't you know ? " she called, hurrying toward him. " Where are the boys ? " 90 SIX STAR RANCH An odd expression crossed the man's kindly, weather-beaten face. " Oh, they're 'round in spots." " Why don't they come to supper ? " Mr. Tim's eyebrows went up. " Well, as near as I can make out, that's part of the welcome they're giving you." " Welcome ! to stay away from supper ! " Mr. Tim laughed. " I reckon maybe I'll have to explain," he replied. " Long John told me they'd got it all fixed up that, after your fine doings back East, you wouldn't take to things on the ranch very well. So for two days the whole bunch has been slicking things up, in- cluding themselves. They hunted up every stiff hat and b'iled shirt in this part of Texas, I reckon, for that splurge at Bolo; and Mammy Lindy says they've been pestering the life out of her, slicking up the house." Genevieve drew in her breath with a little cry. " There ! That's what was the matter with the rooms," she ejaculated. " Nothing looked natural but some things weren't exactly ' slicked up,' Mr. Tim. I couldn't turn around without finding a book at my elbow. There's scarcely one left on the shelves!" " Maybe I can explain that," returned the man, with a twinkle in his eyes. " Reddy said the East was mighty strong on books and culturing, so I SIX STAR RANCH 91 s'pose he thought he'd have 'em 'round handy. It's lucky your father had all them books come out while you was studying, or else I reckon the boys would have hit the trail for the nearest book-store and roped every book in sight." Genevieve laughed appreciatively. " But, the supper ? " she frowned again. " Oh, that's part of the outfit and Reddy said it was ' dinner,' too. He said that he was raised back East, and that he knew; and that 'twas more seemly that you ate it without their com- pany." "Humph! Well, it isn't, and I sha'n't," settled Genevieve, emphatically. "Where is Reddy? Go in to supper," she laughed, " and I'll round up the boys I mean, I'll find them," she corrected de- murely. " Miss Jane doesn't like me to say ' round up,' Mr. Tim." Mr. Tim smiled, but his eyes grew tender al- most anxious. " I reckon they haven't spoiled you back East, after all, little girl. You're the same true blue, like you was, before." Genevieve laughed and colored a little. "Of course I am," she declared. "Now I'm going for the boys." Mr. Tim laid a detaining hand on her arm. " Not to-night ; it's late, and it would make no end of fuss all around. But I'll tell them. They'll 92 SIX STAR RANCH be on hand for breakfast, all right. Now go back to your own supper, yourself." " All right," agreed Genevieve, reluctantly. " But to-morrow, remember ! " " I ain't forgetting to-morrow," nodded the man. In the dining-room Genevieve was greeted with a merry clamor, under cover of which she said hur- riedly to her father: " It's all right. They'll come to-morrow." " I guess you won't find we've left you much to eat," gurgled Elsie Martin, her mouth full of fried chicken. "Oh, yes, I shall in Texas," retorted Gene- vieve. " But I'm so ashamed," apologized Cordelia. " I don't think we ought to eat so much." " I do," disagreed Tilly, " when everything is so perfectly lovely as this is. They are just the nicest things ! And just guess how many hot biscuits I've eaten with this delicious plum sauce! Mr. Hartley says they're wild the plums, I mean, not the bis- cuits." " And it's all such a surprise, too," interposed Alma Lane; "milk, and butter, an,d all." Genevieve stared frankly. " Surprise ! milk and butter! " she exclaimed. " Didn't you suppose we had milk and butter? " Alma blushed. SIX STAR RANCH " Why, Genevieve, I I didn't mean anything, you know, truly I didn't," she stammered. " It's only that that ranches don't usually have them, you know." "Don't usually have them!" frowned Gene- vieve. " Alma Lane, what are you talking about?" " Why, we read it, you know, in a book," ex- plained Cordelia, hastily, coming to the rescue. ; ' They said in spite of there being so many cows all around everywhere, there wasn't any butter or milk, and that the cowboys wouldn't like to be asked to milk, you know." "You read it? Where?" Genevieve's forehead still wore its frown. Mr. Hartley gave a chuckling laugh. " I reckon Genevieve doesn't know much about such ranches," he observed. " As I was telling you, Miss Cordelia, coming out this afternoon, there's just as much difference in ranches as there is in folks; and ours happens to be the kind where we like all the comforts of home pretty well. To be sure, I wouldn't just like to ask Reddy or Long John to milk, maybe," he added, with a whimsical smile; "but I don't have to, you see. I've got Carlos for just such work. He looks after the vegetable garden, too, and Genevieve's flowers. By the way, dearie," he turned to his daughter " Tim says Carlos has been putting in his prettiest 94 SIX STAR RANCH work on your garden this summer. Be sure you don't forget to notice it." " As if I could help noticing it," returned Gene- vieve. She was about to say more when there came an earnest question from Cordelia. " Mr. Hartley, please, what did you call those two men? " "What men?" " The ones you you wouldn't wish to ask to milk." " Oh, the boys ? I don't remember I reckon 'twas Reddy and Long John that I mentioned, maybe." " Yes, sir ; that's the one I mean the John one. What is his other name, please ? " "His surname? Why, really, Miss Cordelia, I reckon I've forgotten what it is. The boys all go by their first names, mostly, else by a nickname. Why ? Found a long-lost friend ? " " Oh, no, sir. Well, I mean that is he may be lost, but he isn't mine," stammered Cordelia, who was always very literal. " Then don't blush so, Cordy," bantered Tilly, wickedly, " else we shall think he is yours." Cordelia blushed a still deeper pink, but she said nothing; and in the confusion of leaving the dining- room she managed to place herself as far from Tilly as possible. On the back gallery she saw the ranch foreman. As the others went chattering through SIX STAR RANCH 95 the hall to the gallery beyond, she lingered timidly. " Mr. Nolan, would would you please tell me Mr. Mr. John's other name ? " " John ? Oh, you mean ' Long John/ Miss ? " "Yes; but ' John' what?" Tim Nolan frowned. " Why, let me see," he bit his lip in thought < Pierce ' no, ' Proctor/ Yes, that's it ' John Proctor.' " A look of mingled disappointment and relief crossed Cordelia's face. " Thank you, Mr. Nolan, very much," she fal- tered, as she hurried after her companions. " I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry," she was thinking. " Of course 'twould have been nice if he'd been John Sanborn, only I'm afraid Hermit Joe wouldn't like a cowboy for a son, specially as there wouldn't be anything for him to do in Sun- bridge at his trade." Mrs. Kennedy announced soon after supper that she should take matters in hand very sternly that night and insist upon an early bedtime hour. " It has been a long, hot, fatiguing day," she said, " but you are all so excited you'd sit up half the night asking questions and telling stories; so I shall take advantage of my position as chaperon, and send you to bed very soon." " O dear ! " sighed Tilly. " If only it would come SIX STAR RANCH morning quick! Just think, we've got to wait a whole night before we can do any of the things we're dying to do ! " " Never mind ; there are lots of days coming," laughed Mr. Hartley. " What a fine family of young folks I have, to be sure/' he gloried, looking around him contentedly. They were all about him on the front gallery, in hammocks and chairs, or sitting on the steps; and a very attractive group they made, indeed. " I think it would help the waiting if Genevieve would go in and sing to us," suggested Bertha, after a moment's silence. " It will be so heavenly to sit out here and listen to it ! " " Oh, sing that lovely Mexican ' Swallow Song/ ' coaxed Elsie. " ' La Gol ' Go/-something, any- how." " Don't swear, Elsie," reproved Tilly, with be- coming dignity. " ' La Golondrina'f" laughed Genevieve. " Yes, it's a dear," sighed Elsie. " I'd rather have that Creole Love Song that you say Mammy Lindy taught you," breathed Cordelia. " That would be perfect for such a scene as this." " Pooh ! I'd rather have one of those tinkly little tunes where you can hear the banjos and the tam- bourines," averred Tilly. " Indeed ! At this rate I don't see how I'm going to sing at all," laughed Genevieve, " with so many SIX STAR RANCH 97 conflicting wishes. Anything different anybody wants ? " " Yes," declared Mr. Hartley, promptly. " I want them all." " Of course! " cried half a dozen voices. "All right!" rejoined Genevieve, laughingly, springing to her feet. And so while everybody watched the stars in the far-reaching sky, Genevieve, in the living room, played and sang till the back gallery and the long covered way at the rear of the house were full of the moving shadows of soft-stepping Mexican serv- ants and cowboys. And everywhere there was the hush of perfect content while from the living room there floated out the clear, sweet tones, the weird, dreamy melodies, and the tinkle of the tambourines. One by one, an hour later, the lighted windows in the long, low ranch house became dark. The last to change was the one behind which sat Cordelia Wilson in the room she shared with Tilly. " Cordelia, why don't you put out that light and go to bed ? " demanded Tilly at last, drowsily. " Morning will never come at this rate ! " '' Yes, Tilly, I'm going to bed in just a minute," promised Cordelia, as carefully she wrote in the space opposite Mrs. Miller's name on her list of " things to do " : " Cowboys are good, kind gentlemen ; but they are noisy, and some rough-looking." 98 SIX STAR RANCH Five minutes later, Cordelia, from her little bed on one side of the room called a soft " good night " across to Tilly. But Tilly was al- ready asleep. SIX STAR RANCH 99 CHAPTER VIII THE MISTRESS OF THE SIX STAR RANCH BREAKFAST was an early matter at the Six Star Ranch. It came almost with the sunrise, in fact. Genevieve had assured her guests, on the night of their arrival, however, that their breakfast might be hours later that it might, indeed, be at any hour they pleased. But on this first morning at the ranch, there was not one guest that did not promptly respond to the breakfast-bell except Mrs. Kennedy. The stir of life out of doors had proved an effectual rising-bell for all ; and it was anything but a sleepy- looking crowd of young people that tripped into the dining-room to find the boys already waiting for them a little quiet and shy, to be sure, but very red and shiny-looking as to face and hands, speak- ing loudly of a vigorous use of soap and water. Before the meal was half over, Mrs. Kennedy came in, only to meet a chorus of remonstrances that she should have disturbed herself so early. Genevieve, however, assumed a look of mock severity. " Aunt Julia," she began reprovingly in so per- fect an imitation of Miss Jane Chick's severest 100 SIX STAR RANCH manner that Mrs. Kennedy's lips twitched ; " didn't you hear the rising-bell, my dear ? How often must I ask you not to be late to your meals? " For one brief moment there was a dazed hush about the table; then, at sight of Cordelia's hor- rified face, Genevieve lost her self-control and gig- gled. " Oh, but that was such a good chance," she chuckled. " Please, Aunt Julia, I just couldn't help it I had to!" "I don't doubt it," smiled back Mrs. Kennedy; and at the meaning emphasis in her voice there was a general laugh. " Well, what shall we do first? " demanded Tilly, when breakfast was over. Genevieve put her finger to her lips. " I wonder, now. Oh, I know ! Let's go out and see if they've driven in the saddle band yet; then we'll watch the boys rope them and start to work." "What's a saddle band? sounds like a girth," frowned Tilly. " Humph ! I reckon it isn't one, all the same," laughed Genevieve. " It's the horses the boys ride. Each one has his own string, you know." " No, I don't know," retorted Tilly, aggrievedly. " And you needn't use all those funny words ' string ' and ' saddle band ' and ' rope them ' without explaining them, either, Genevieve Hartley. SIX STAB RANCH 101 You've been talking like that ever since we came. Just as if we knew what all that meant! " Genevieve laughed again. " No, you don't, of course," she admitted, " any more than I understood some of your terms back East. But come; let's go out and watch the boys. One of the sheds has a lovely low, flat roof, and we can see right over into the horse corral from there. It's easy; there's a ladder. Come on!" " Why, what a lot of horses ! " cried Tilly, a mo- ment later, as they stepped out of doors. " Do they ride all those?" " Not this morning," laughed Genevieve. " You see, each man has his own string of horses, and he picks out some one of the bunch, and lets the rest go. That's Reddy, now, driving them into the cor- ral. The other boys will be here pretty quick now, and the fun will begin. You'll see ! " The horse corral was high and circular, and there was a fine view of it from the shed roof. A snub- bing post was in the middle of the corral, and a wing was built out at one side from the entrance gate, so that the horses could be driven in more easily; yet Reddy quite had his hands full as it was. At last they were all in, and a merry time they were having of it, racing in a circle about the enclosure, heads up, and tails and manes flying. " Regular merry-go-round, isn't it ? " giggled Tilly. But Cordelia clutched Genevieve's arm. 102 SIX STAR RANCH " Genevieve, look they've got ropes ! Gene- vieve, what are they going to do?" she gasped, her eyes on the boys who were running from all directions now, toward the corral. " Why, Genevieve, they're going in there, with all those horses ! " " I reckon they are," rejoined the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. " Now watch, and you'll see. There ! see there ? in the middle by that post ! Each man will pick out one of his own horses and rope him; then he'll lead him out and saddle him, and the deed's done." " I guess that's easier to say than to do," ob- served Bertha, dryly. " I notice there aren't any of those horses just hanging 'round waiting to be caught!" " No, there aren't, to-day," laughed Genevieve ; " though some of the horses will do just that, at times specially Long John's. They're pretty lively now, however, and it does take some skill to make a nice job of it when they're jamming and jostling like that. But the boys are equal to it. We've got some splendid ropers ! " This time there was a note of very evident pride in the voice of the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. It was a brief but exciting time that followed, filled, as it was, with the shouts of the boys the jeers at some failure, the cheers at some success the thud of the horses' hoofs, the swirl of the skill- SIX STAR RANCH 103 fully flung ropes. It was almost as exciting when the boys, their horses once caught, led out, and sad- dled, rode off for their morning's work. To Cor- delia, especially, it was an experience never to be forgotten. "Going to turn cowboy, Miss Cordelia?" asked Mr. Hartley, with a smile, as he met the girl com- ing into the house a little later. Mr. Hartley, in his broad-brimmed hat, and his gray tweed trousers tucked into his high boots, looked the picture of the prosperous ranchman at home. Cordelia showed a distinctly shocked face. "Oh, no, sir!" she cried. " Don't think you could learn to swing the rope eh? "he teased. "Mercy, no!" A half -proud, wholly-gratified smile crossed the man's face. " It isn't as easy as it looks to be," he said. " Once in a while we get a tenderfoot out here, though, who thinks he's going to learn it all in a minute or, rather, do it without any learning. But to be a good roper, one has to give it long, hard practice. The best of 'em begin young. Reddy, the crack roper in my outfit, tells me he began with his mother's clothes-line at the age of four years, with his rocking-horse for a victim. It seems there was a picture in one of his books of a cowboy roping a pony, and " 104 SIX STAR RANCH Mr. Hartley stopped, as if listening. From the rear of the house had sounded the creak of the windmill crank. The man turned, entered the hall, and crossed to the window. Then he shook his head with a smile. " I'm afraid Genevieve is up to her old tricks," he said. " She's stopping the windmill so she can climb to the top of the tower, I reckon." " Genevieve ! at the top of that tower ! " ex- claimed Cordelia. Mr. Hartley's lips twitched. " Yes. That used to be a daily stunt of hers, and I let her," added the man, a little doggedly. " It made her well and strong, anyhow, and helped to develop her muscle. You see, we we don't have gymnasiums on the ranch," he concluded whim- sically, as they stepped together out on to the back gallery. A babel of gleeful shouts and laughter greeted their ears. A moment later Mr. Hartley and Cor- delia came in sight of the windmill. At its base four chattering, shrieking girls were laughing and clapping their hands. Above their heads, Gene- vieve, in a dark blue gymnasium suit, was swinging herself gracefully from cross-piece to cross-piece in the tower. " You see," smiled Mr. Hartley ; but he was in- terrupted by a shocked, frightened voice behind him. SIX STAR RANCH 105 " Genevieve, my dear ! " gasped Mrs. Kennedy, hurrying forward. Genevieve did not hear, apparently. To the girls she waved a free hand, joyously. She was almost at the top. " It's fine mighty fine up here," she caroled. " I can see 'way, 'way over the prairie ! " " Genevieve ! Genevieve Hartley, come down this instant," commanded Mrs. Kennedy. Then her voice shook, and grew piteously frightened, as she stammered: "No, no don't come down, dear! Genevieve, how can you come down ? " Mrs. Ken- nedy was wringing her hands now. This time Genevieve heard. " Why, Aunt Julia, what is it? What is the mat- ter?" The girl's voice expressed only concerned surprise. "What is the matter?" echoed Mrs. Ken- nedy, faintly. " Genevieve, how can you come down?" "Come down? Why, that's easy! But I don't want to come down." Mrs. Kennedy's lips grew stern. " Genevieve," she said, with an obvious effort to speak quietly; "if you can come down, I desire you to do so at once." Genevieve came down. Her eyes flashed a little, and her cheeks were redder than usual. She did not once glance toward the girls, clustered in a silent, 106 SIX STAR RANCH frightened little group. She did not appear to no- tice even her father, standing by. She went straight to Mrs. Kennedy. " I've come down, Aunt Julia/' Mrs. Kennedy had been seriously disturbed, and genuinely frightened. To her, Genevieve's climb to the top of the windmill tower was very danger- ous, as well as very unladylike. Yet it was the fright, even more than the displeasure that made her voice sound so cold now in her effort to steady it. " Thank you, Genevieve. Please see that there is no occasion for you to come down again," she said meaningly. Then she turned and went into the house. Just how it happened, Genevieve did not know, but almost at once she found herself alone with her father on the back gallery. The girls had disap- peared. Genevieve was very angry now. " Father, it wasn't fair, to speak like that," she choked, " before the girls and you, when I hadn't done a thing not a thing ! Why, it it was just like Miss Jane ! I never knew Aunt Julia to be like that." For a moment her father was silent. His face wore a thoughtful frown. " I know it, dearie," he said at last. " But I don't think Mrs. Kennedy quite realized, quite under- SIX STAR RANCH 107 stood how you'd feel. She didn't think it just right for you to be there." " But I was in my gym suit, Father. I skipped in and put it on purposely, while the others were doing something else; then I climbed the tower. Pd| planned 'way ahead how I'd surprise them." The man hesitated. "I know, dearie," he nodded, after a moment; " but I reckon it was just a little too much of a surprise for Mrs. Kennedy. You know she isn't used to the West; and do Boston young ladies climb windmill towers?" In spite of her anger, Genevieve laughed. The mention of Boston had put her in mind of some Boston friends of Mrs. Kennedy's, whom she knew. She had a sudden vision of what Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butterfield's faces would have been, had their stern, sixty-year-old eyes seen what Mrs. Kennedy saw. " I reckon, too," went on Mr. Hartley, with a sigh, " that I have sort of spoiled you, letting you have your own way. And maybe Mammy Lindy and I, in our anxiety th^t you should be well and strong, and sit the saddle like a Texas daughter' should, haven't taught you always just the dainty little lady ways that you ought to have been taught." " You've taught me everything everything good and lovely," protested the girl, hotly. 108 SIX STAR RANCH He shook his head. A far-away look came into his eyes. " I haven't, dearie and that's why I sent you East." Genevieve flushed. " But I didn't want to go East, in the first place," she stormed. " I wanted to stay here with you. Besides, Aunt Julia isn't really any relation, nor Miss Jane, either. They haven't any right to to speak to me like that." A dull red stole to John Hartley's cheek. " Tut, tut, dearie," he demurred, with a shake of the head. " You mustn't forget how good they've been to you. Besides they have got the right. I gave it to them. I told them to make you like themselves." There was a long silence. Genevieve's eyes were moodily fixed on the floor. Her father gave her a swift glance, then went on, softly : " I suspect, too, maybe we're both forgetting, dearie. After all, Mrs. Kennedy did it every bit through love. She was frightened. She was so scared she just shook, dearie." " She was ? " Genevieve's voice was amazed. " Yes. I reckon that's more than half why she spoke so stern, and why she's in her room crying this minute as I'll warrant she is. I saw her eyes, and I saw how her hands shook. And I saw it was all she could do to keep from falling right on your SIX STAR RANCH 109 neck because she had you back safe and sound. Maybe you didn't see that, dearie." There was no answer. " You see, their ways back East, and ours, aren't alike," resumed the man, after a time ; " but I reckon their love is." Genevieve drew a long breath. Her brown eyes were not clear. " I reckon maybe I'll go and find Aunt Julia," she said in a low voice. The next moment her father sat alone on the back gallery. 110 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER IX REDDY AND THE BRONCHO THERE was no lack of interesting things to do that first day at the ranch. There was one half- hour, to be sure, when five of the Happy Hexagons sat a little quietly on the front gallery and tried to talk as if there were no such thing as a windmill, and no such person as a girl who could climb to the top of it; but after Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy, arm in arm, came through the front door with eyes, indeed, a little misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling every vestige of constraint fled. Gene- vieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the alert little hostess, and very soon they were all ofT to inspect the flower garden, the vegetable gar- den, the cow corral, the sheds, the stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who was making tamales in the kitchen for them, nor Pepito, Genevieve's own horse that she rode before she went East. " And we'll have the boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming whinny of SIX STAR RANCH 111 delight. " I'm sure they can find something all right for us." Tilly's eyes brightened, so, too, did Bertha's; but Cordelia spoke hastily, her eyes bent a bit dis- trustfully on the spirited little horse Genevieve was petting. " Oh, but I don't believe they'll have time to hunt up horses for us, Genevieve. Really, I don't think we ought to ask them to." " Maybe we won't, then for you" teased Tilly, saucily. " We'll just let them take time for ours." It is a question, however, if that afternoon, even Tilly wanted to ride; for, according to Cordelia's notes that night in " Things to do," they saw a broncho " bursted." It was Mr. Tim who had said at the dinner table that noon: "If you young people happen to be on hand, say at about four o'clock, you'll see something doing. Reddy's got a horse or two he's going to put through their paces and one of 'em's never been saddled." Privately, to Mr. Hartley, Mrs. Kennedy ob- jected a little. " Are you sure, Mr. Hartley, the girls ought to witness such a sight ? " she asked uneasily. " Of course I don't want to be too strict in my demands," she went on with a little twinkle in her eyes that Mr. Hartley thoroughly understood. " I realize the SIX STAR RANCH West isn't the East. But, will this be all right?" " I think it will even in your judgment," he assured her. " It's no professional broncho-buster that they'll see to-day. I seldom hire them, any- way, as I prefer to have our own men break in the horses specially as we're lucky enough to have three or four mighty skillful ones right in our own outfit. There'll be nothing brutal or rough to-day, Mrs. Kennedy. Only one beast is entirely wild, and he's not really vicious, Reddy says. Genevieve tells me the girls have heard a lot about broncho-busting, and that they're wild to see it. They wouldn't think they'd been to Texas, I'm afraid, if they didn't see something of the sort." " Very well," agreed Mrs. Kennedy, with visible reluctance. " Oh, of course/' went on Mr. Hartley, his eyes twinkling, " you mustn't expect that they'll see ex- actly a pony parade drawing baby carriages down Beacon Street; but they will see some of the best horsemanship that the state of Texas can show. I take it you never saw a little beast whose chief aim in life was to get clear of his rider eh, Mrs. Ken- nedy?" " No, I never did," shuddered the lady; " and I'm not sure that I'd want to," she finished decisively, as she turned away. The new horse proved to be a fiery little bay SIX STAR RANCH 113 mustang, and the fight began from the first moment that the noose settled about his untamed little neck. As Tilly told of the affair in the Chronicles of the Hexagon Club, it was like this : " We saw a broncho busted this afternoon. Reddy busted it, and he was splendid. Mercy! I shall never think anything my old Beauty does is bad again. Beauty is a snail and a saint beside this jumping, plunging, squealing creature that never by any chance was on his feet properly except when he came down hard on all four of them at once with his back humped right up in the middle in a per- fectly frightful fashion and I suppose that wasn't ' properly.' Anyhow, I shouldn't have thought it was, if I had had to try to sit on that hump ! " But that wasn't the only thing that he did. Dear me, no ! He danced, and rolled, and seesawed up and down * pitching,' Mr. Hartley called it. And I'm sure it looked like it. First he'd try stand- ing on his two fore feet, then he'd give them a rest, and take the other two. And sometimes he couldn't seem to make up his mind which he wanted to use, or which way he wanted to turn, and he'd change about right up in the air so he'd come down facing the other way. My, he was the most uncertain creature ! " It didn't seem to make a mite of difference where the horse was, or what he did with his feet, though. Reddy was right there every time, and all 114 SIX STAR RANCH ready, too. (Yes, I know a pun is the lowest order of wit. But I don't care. I couldn't help it, any- way it was such a ready one!) There he sat, so loose and easy, too, with his quirt (that's a whip), and it looked sometimes just as if he wasn't half trying that he didn't need to. But I'm sure he was trying. Anyhow, I know I couldn't have stayed on that horse five minutes ; and I don't believe even Genevieve could. (I said that to Mr. Tim Nolan, and he laughed so hard I thought I'd put it in here, and let somebody else laugh.) " Of course every one of us was awfully excited, and the boys kept shouting and cheering, and yell- ing * Stay with him ! } and telling him not to t go to leather ' whatever that may mean ! And Reddy did stay. He stayed till the little horse got tired out; then he got off, and led the horse away, and some of the other boys went through a good deal the same sort of thing with other horses, only these had all been partly broken before, they told us. But, mercy, they were bad enough, anyhow, I thought, to have been brand-new. Reddy did another one, too, and this time he put silver half-dollars under his feet in the stirrups. And when the little beast the horse, I mean, not Reddy got through his antics, there the half-dollars were, still there in the same old place. How the boys did yell and cheer then! " After that, they all just ' showed off ' for us, SIX STAR RANCH 115 throwing their ropes over anything and everything, and playing like a crowd of little boys on a picnic, only Mr. Hartley said they were doing some ' mighty fine roping ' with it all. Their ropes are mostly about forty feet long, and it looked as if they just slung them any old way ; but I know they don't, for afterward, just before we went in to supper, Reddy let me take his rope, and I tried to throw it. I aimed for a post a little way ahead of me, but I got Pedro, the Mexican cowboy, behind me, right ' in the neck/ as Mr. Tim said. Pedro grinned, and of course everybody else laughed horribly. " And thus endeth the account of how the bronchos were busted. (P. S. I hope whoever reads the above' will own up that for once Tilly Mack got some sense into her part. So there!) I forgot to say we took a nap after dinner. Every- body does here. ' Siestas ' they call them, Gene- vieve says." It was after supper that Genevieve said : " Now let's go out on to the front gallery and watch the sunset. Supper was too late last night for us to see much of it, but to-night it will be fine and you've no idea what a sunset really can be until you've seen it on the prairie ! " Tilly pursed her lips. "There, Genevieve Hartley, there's another of 116 SIX STAR RANCH those mysterious words of yours; and it isn't the first time I've heard it here, either." "What word?" "'Gallery.' What is a gallery ? I'm sure I don't see what there can be about a one-story house to be called a ' gallery ' ! " Genevieve laughed. ' You call them * verandas ' or ' piazzas/ back East, Tilly. We call them ' galleries ' in Texas." "Oh, is that it?" frowned Tilly. "But you never called Sunbridge piazzas that." Genevieve shook her head. " No ; it's only when I get back here that the old names come back to me so naturally. Besides when I was East, I very soon found out what you called them; so I called them that, too." "Well, anyhow," retorted Tilly, saucily, "I've got my opinion of folks that will call a one-story piazza a * gallery.' I should just like to show them what we call a ' gallery ' at home say, the top one in the Boston Theater, you know, where it runs 'way back." Genevieve only laughed good-naturedly. On the front gallery all settled themselves com- fortably to watch the sunset. Already the sun was low in the west, a huge ball of fire just ready to drop into the sea of prairie grass. " It doesn't seem nearly so hot here as I thought it would," observed Bertha, after a time. " Oh, it's SIX STAR RANCH 117 been warm to-day, of course part of the time awfully warm," she added hastily. " But I've been just as hot in New Hampshire." " We think we've got a mighty fine climate," spoke up Mr. Hartley. " Now, last year, you in the East, had heaps of prostrations from the heat. Texas had just three." " I suppose that was owing to the Northers," murmured Cordelia, interestedly. "Now, feel it!" She put up her hand. " There's a breeze, now. Is that a Norther?" Mr. Hartley coughed suddenly. Genevieve stared. " What do you know about Northers ? " she de- manded. " Why, I I read about them. It said you you had them." Genevieve broke into a merry laugh. " I should think, by the way you put it, that they were the measles or the whooping cough! We do have them, Cordelia in the winter, specially, but not so often in July. Besides, they don't feel much like this little breeze as you'd soon find out, if you happened to be in one." For a moment there was silence ; then Genevieve spoke again. " See here, where'd you find out all these things about Texas that we didn't have butter, and did have Northers?" 118 SIX STAR RANCH Before Cordelia could answer, Tilly interposed with a chuckling laugh : " I'll tell you, Genevieve, just where they found out/ 7 she cut in, utterly ignoring her own share of the " they." " Now, listen ! How do you suppose they spent all the time you were in New Jersey? I'll tell you. They were digging up Texas every single minute; and they dug, and dug, and dug, until there wasn't a mean annual temperature, or a mean anything else that they didn't drag from its hiding-place and hold up triumphantly, and shout: 'Behold, this is Texas!'" " Girls you didn't ! " cried Genevieve, choking with laughter. "They did! "affirmed Tilly. " Yes, we did including Tilly," declared Cor- delia, with unexpected spirit. Everybody laughed this time, but it was Alma, the peacemaker, who spoke next. " Oh, look look at the sun ! " she exclaimed. " Aren't those rose-pink clouds gorgeous ? " "My, wouldn't they make a lovely dress?" sighed Elsie. " Yes, and see the golden pathway the sun has made, straight down to the prairie," cried Bertha Brown. " Oh, look, look, Mr. Hartley ! Is that grass on fire?" gasped Cordelia. Mr. Hartley shook his head. SIX STAR RANCH 119 "No I hope not." " But you do have prairie fires? " " Sometimes ; but not so often nowadays though I've seen some bad ones, in my time." There was a long silence. All eyes were turned toward the west. Above, a riot of rose and gold and purple flamed across the sky. Below, more softly, the colors seemed almost repeated in the waving, shifting, changing expanse of fairylike love- liness that the prairie had become. " Oh, how beautiful it all is, and how I do love it," breathed Genevieve, after a time, as if to her- self. Gradually the gorgeous rose and gold and purple changed, softened, and faded quite away. The slender crescent of the moon appeared, and one by one the stars showed in the darkening sky. " It's all so quiet, so wonderfully quiet," sighed Cordelia ; then, abruptly, she cried : " Why, what's that?" There had sounded a far-away shout, then an- other, nearer. On the breeze was borne the muffled tread of hundreds of hoofs. A dog began to bark lustily. Later, they swept into view a troop of cow- boys, and a thronging, jostling mass of cattle. " On the way to a round-up, probably," explained Mr. Hartley, as he rose to his feet and went 120 SIX STAR RANCH to meet the foreman, who was coming toward the house. Still later, he explained more fully. " They've put them in our pens for the night. The boys have gone into camp a mile or so away." Genevieve shuddered. " I hate round-ups," she cried passionately. " What are round-ups ? " asked Bertha Brown. " Where they brand the cattle," answered Gene- vieve, quickly, but in a low voice. Cordelia, who was near her, shuddered. She seemed now to see before her eyes that seething mass of heads and horns, sweeping on and on un- ceasingly. Cordelia had two dreams that night. She won- dered, afterward, which was the worse. She dreamed, first, that an endless stream of cattle climbed the windmill tower and jumped clear to the edge of the prairie, where the sun went down. She dreamed, secondly, that she was very hungry, and that twenty feet away stood a table laden with hot biscuits and fried chicken; but that the only way she could obtain any food was to " rope it " with Reddy's lariat. At the time of waking up she had not obtained so much as one biscuit or a chicken wing. SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER X CORDELIA GOES TO CHURCH " WE'RE going to have church to-morrow/' Gene- vieve had announced on the first Saturday night at the ranch. " A minister is coming from Bolo, and he holds the service out of doors. Everybody on the place comes, and we sing, and it's lovely ! " As it happened, Cordelia had not been present when Genevieve made this announcement. It was left for Tilly, therefore, to tell her. " Oh, Cordelia, I forgot. We're going to have church to-morrow," she said that night, as she was brushing her hair in their room. Cordelia, who was taking off her shoes, looked up delightedly. " Oh, Tilly church ? We're going to church ? " Tilly laughed; then an odd little twist came to her mouth. " Yes, Cordelia ; we're going to church," she answered. "What time?" " Eleven o'clock, Genevieve said." " Oh, won't that be fun I mean, I'm very SIX STAR RANCH glad," corrected Cordelia, hastily, a confused red in her cheeks. In Cordelia's bed that night, Cordelia thought happily : " Maybe now I can get some new ideas for Uncle Thomas to put in his services. They do everything so differently here in the West, and Uncle's audi- ences get so small sometimes, specially Sunday eve- nings." In Tilly's bed, Tilly, a little guilty as to con- science, was trying to excuse herself. '' Well, anyhow," she was arguing mentally, " Genevieve said ' everybody comes/ and if they ' come ' they must * go ' ; so of course we're ' going ' to church." Not until Cordelia was dropping off to sleep did something occur to her. She sat up, then, suddenly. " Tilly," she called softly, " where is that church ? Do we have to ride eighteen miles to Bolo? " Tilly did not answer. She was asleep, decided Cordelia it was dark, and Cordelia could not see the pillow Tilly was stuffing into her mouth. Just after breakfast Sunday morning, Elsie Mar- tin said a low word in Genevieve's ear, and drew her out of earshot of the others. Her eyes were anxious. " Genevieve, do you have to dress up much for this kind of of church?" she questioned. SIX STAR RANCH 123 " Not a bit, dear. Don't worry. Anything you have will be lovely." " I know; but well, you see, it's just this/' she quavered. " Aunt Kate fixed up the girls' green chambray for me just before we came. I saw then it didn't look just right, but we were in such an awful hurry there wasn't time to do anything; and I was so excited, anyway, that I didn't seem to mind, much. But out here, in the bright light, it looks awfully ! " " Nonsense ! That's all your own notion, Elsie," rejoined Genevieve, comfortingly. " I'm sure it looks lovely. Anyhow, it wouldn't matter if it didn't here." Elsie shook her head despondently. " But you don't understand," she said. " You know the twins dress alike, and this was their green chambray. Aunt Kate always likes to use their things, she says, because there's always double quan- tity; but this time it didn't work so well. You see, Cora was sick a lot last summer, when they had this dress, and she didn't wear hers half so much as Clara did, so hers wasn't faded hardly any. It was an awful funny color to begin with; but it's worse now, with part of it one shade, and part another. You see, one sleeve's made of Cora's, and one of Clara's; and the front breadth is Cora's and the back is Clara's. Of course Aunt Kate cut it out where she could do it best, and didn't think but 124 SIX STAR RANCH what they were alike; but you don't know what a funny-looking thing that dress is ! I I don't know whether to turn Clara toward folks, or Cora," she finished with a little laugh. Genevieve heard the laugh but she saw that it came through trembling lips. " Well, I just wouldn't fret," she declared, with an affectionate little hug. " If you don't want to wear it, wear something else. What a nuisance clothes are, anyhow! I've always said I wished we didn't have to change our dress every time we turned around! " Elsie's eyes became wistful. She shook her head sadly. " You don't know anything about it, Genevieve. Your clothes haven't been a nuisance to you even if you think they have. You see, you don't realize how nice it is to have such a lot of pretty things and all new," she sighed as she turned away. When Genevieve went to her room to dress for " church " that morning, she looked a little thought- fully at the array of pretty frocks hanging in her closet. " I wish I could give some to Elsie," she sighed ; " but Elsie isn't poor, of course, and I suppose she she wouldn't take them. But I suspect I don't half appreciate them myself just as Elsie said," she finished, as she took down a fresh, white linen. At quarter before eleven Cordelia Wilson SIX STAR RANCH 125 knocked at Genevieve's door. Genevieve opened it to find Cordelia in a neat jacket suit, hat on, and gloves in hand. "Am I all right, Genevieve?" she asked. "I wasn't quite sure just what to wear." ''' Why, y-yes only you don't need the hat, nor the gloves, dear; and I shouldn't think you'd want that coat, it's so warm ! " " Not want a hat, or gloves," burst out Cordelia, looking distinctly shocked. " Why, Genevieve Hart- ley! I know you do very strange things here in the West, but I did suppose you you dressed properly to go to church ! " " But it isn't really church, Cordelia," smiled Genevieve. " I only call it so, you know. And of course we don't ' go ' at all only as far as the back gallery." Cordelia stared, frowningly. " You mean you don't drive off anywhere ? " she demanded. " That you have a service right here?" " Yes. I thought you knew." " But Tilly said why, I don't know what she did say, exactly, but she let me think we were going to drive off somewhere. And look at me rigged out like this ! You know-how she'll tease me ! " There were almost tears in Cordelia's sensitive eyes. " Has she seen you in this ? " " No ; but she will when I go back. I saw her 126 SIX STAR RANCH whisk through the hall to our room just as I crossed through to come in here." " Then we won't let her see you," chuckled Gene- vieve. " Here, let's have your hat and gloves and coat. I'll hide them in my closet. You can get them later when Tilly isn't around. Now run back and put a serene face on it. Just don't let her sus- pect you ever thought of your hat and gloves." " But, do you think I ought to do that ? Won't it be deceit?" " No, dear, it won't," declared Genevieve, em- phatically ; " not any sort of deceit that's any harm. It will just be depriving Miss Tilly of the naughty fun she expected to have with you. You know how Tilly loves to tease folks. Well, she'll just find the tables turned, this time. Now run back quick, or she'll suspect things ! " And, a little doubtfully, Cordelia went. As she had expected, she found Tilly in their room. " Why don't you get ready for church, Cordy? " demanded Tilly, promptly. " I am ready. I dressed early, before you came in," returned Cordelia, trying to speak very uncon- cernedly. " Why? Don't you think this will do? " " Oh, yes, of course. You look very nice," mur- mured Tilly, a little hastily, sending a furtive glance into Cordelia's face. There was nothing, apparently, about Cordelia to indicate that anything unexpected SIX STAR RANCH 127 had occurred, or was about to occur; and she her- self could not, of course, ask why no preparations for an eighteen-mile journey were being made, spe- cially when she had pretended to be asleep the night before when Cordelia asked her question about that same journey. " You look very nice, I'm sure," murmured Tilly, again. And Cordelia, hearing the vague disappointment in Tilly's voice, was filled with joy that yet carried a pang of remorse. It was a little later, just as Tilly was leaving the room, that Cordelia turned abruptly. " Tilly, I did have on my hat and coat," she burst out hurriedly. " I did think we were going to drive 'way off somewhere to church. But I found out and hid them in Genevieve's room, so you would not know and and tease me," she finished breath- lessly. Tilly turned back with a laugh. " You little rogue ! " she began ; then she stopped short. Her face changed. " But why in the world did you tell me now ? " she demanded curi- ously. " I thought I ought to." "Ought to! ought to let me tease you!" echoed the dumfounded Tilly. Cordelia stirred restlessly. " Not that, of course, exactly," she stammered. " It's only that that it seemed somehow like deceiving you." 128 SIX STAR RANCH For a moment Tilly stared; then, suddenly, she darted across the room and put both arms around the minister's niece. Cordelia was not quite sure whether she was hugging her, or shaking her. " Oh, you you I don't know what you are ! " Tilly was exclaiming. " But you're a dear, any- how ! " And it was actually a sob that the as- tounded Cordelia heard as Tilly turned and fled from the room. To Sunbridge eyes, " church " that morning was something very new and novel. At eleven o'clock Genevieve and her father piloted their guests to the back gallery where seats had been reserved for them. The minister, a dark-haired, tired-looking man with kind eyes, had arrived some time before on horseback. To Mrs. Kennedy, especially, he looked a little too unconventional in his heavy boots and coarse garments which, though plainly recently brushed, still showed the dust of the prairie in spots. He sat now at one side talking with Mr. Tim while his " congregation " was gathering. And what a congregation it was ! As Genevieve had said, everybody on the ranch came, except those whose duties prohibited them from coming. Singly, or in picturesque groups, they settled themselves comfortably on the back gallery, or along the cov- ered way leading to the dining-room. Even Teresa, in a huge fresh apron that made her great bulk look SIX STAR RANCH 129 even greater, sat just outside the dining-room door, where she could easily run in from time to time, to see that the roast chickens in the oven were not burning, nor the beets on the stove boiling dry. The " pulpit " was a little stand placed at the house-end of the covered way. The " choir " was the piano in the living-room drawn up close to the window, with Genevieve herself seated at it. Nor was the " church " itself devoid of beauty, with its growing vines and flowers, and its shifting lights and shadows as the soft clouds sailed slowly through the blue sky overhead. As to the audience no scholarly orator in a Fifth Avenue cathedral found that day more attentive listeners than did that tired- looking minister find in the curiously-assorted groups before him the swarthy Mexicans, the picturesque cowboys, the eager-eyed, fresh-faced young girls from a far-away town in the East. They sang first, Genevieve's own clear voice leading; and even Tilly, who seldom sang in church at home, found herself joining heartily in " Nearer my God to Thee," and " Bringing in the Sheaves." There was something so free, so whole-souled about the music in that soft outdoor air, that she, as well as some of the others, decided that never before had any music sounded so inspiring. For the first two minutes after the preacher arose to begin his sermon, Mrs. Kennedy saw nothing but the dust on the right shoulder of his coat. But 130 SIX STAR RANCH after that she saw nothing but his earnest eyes. She had fallen then quite under the sway of his clear, ringing voice. " ' While Josiah was yet young, in the sixteenth year of his age, he began to seek the God of his fathers/ " announced the clear, ringing voice as the text; and Genevieve, hearing it, wondered if the minister could have known that at least a part of his audience that day would be so exactly, or so very nearly, " in the sixteenth year " of their own age. It was a good sermon, and it was well preached. The time, the place, the occasion, the atmosphere all helped, too. All the Happy Hexagons paid reverent attention. Tilly, fresh from her somewhat amazing experience with Cordelia, made many and stern resolutions to be everything that was good and helpful, nothing that was bad and hateful. Genevieve, who had slipped off her piano stool to an easier chair, sat with dreamy, tender eyes. She was thinking of the dear mother, who, as she could so well remember, had told her that she must always be good and brave and true first, before anything else. " Good and brave and true ! " She wondered if she could always. It seemed so easy to do it now, with this good man's earnest voice in her ears. But it was so hard, so strangely hard, at other times. And there were so many things so many, many SIX STAR RANCH 131 little things that to Aunt Julia and Miss Jane looked so big ! things, too, that to her seemed eminently all right. * When Josiah was yet young, in the sixteenth year of his age, he began to seek the God of his fathers/" quoted the minister again, impressively; and Genevieve realized then, with misty eyes, that the sermon was done. The minister stayed to dinner, of course; and, in spite of her interest in the sermon, Teresa had seen to it that the dinner was everything that one could ask of it. The minister had the place of honor at the table, and proved to be a most agree- able talker. Genevieve had not caught his name distinctly, but she thought it was " Jones." He lived in Bolo, he said, having recently moved there from a distant part of the state. He hoped that he might be able to do good work there. Certainly there was need that somebody do something. In response to Mr. Hartley's cordial invitation to stay a few days at the ranch, he answered with visible regret : " Thank you, sir. Nothing would please me more, but it is quite out of the question. I must go back this afternoon. I have a service in Bolo this evening." " You must be a busy man," observed Mr. Hart- ley, genially. 132 SIX STAR RANCH The minister sighed. " I am yet I can't do half that I want to. This outside work among the ranches I shall try to carry on as best I can. But you're all so afraid you'll have a neighbor nearer than a score of miles," he added with a whimsical smile, " that I can't get among you very often." It was after dinner that the minister chanced to hear Genevieve speak of herself as a Happy Hexa- gon. " Hexagon? Hexagon? " he echoed smilingly. " And are you, too, a Happy Hexagon ? " he asked, turning to the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. " Why, yes. Do you mean you know another one ? " questioned the girl, all interest immediately. " It's the name of our girls' club the Hexagon Club." " No, but I heard of one, once," rejoined the man. " And it isn't usual, you know, so it attracted my attention." "But where was it? When was it? We sup- posed we were the only Happy Hexagons in the world," cried Genevieve. The minister smiled. * " I found my Happy Hexagons at the bottom of a letter from the East." " A letter from the East ? " Genevieve's voice held now a curious note of wild unbelief. " Yes. It came before we moved to Bolo. My SIX STAR RANCH 133 elder daughter was teaching in the East, and was taken ill. Some of her girls wrote to us." Genevieve sprang to her feet. "Are you you can't be the Rev. Luke Jones ! " she cried. " That is my name." " And is Quentina your daughter? " It was the minister's turn to look amazed. ;< Why, yes ; but how do you know ? Are you you can't be my Happy Hexagons ! " he ejacu- lated. She nodded laughingly. She spoke, too; but what she said was not heard. All of the Happy Hexagons were talking by that time. The Rev. Mr. Jones, indeed, found himself besieged on all sides with eager questions and amazed comments. Under cover of the confusion, Mr. Hartley turned in puzzled wonder to Mrs. Kennedy. "Will you tell me what all this is about?" he begged. Mrs. Kennedy smiled. "Of course ! I think perhaps it is all new to you. Last winter Miss ^\lice Jones, a Texas lady and the girls' Latin teacher, was taken ill. The girls were very attentive, and did lots of little things for her ; but she grew worse and had to leave. Just before she went, the mother wrote a letter thanking the girls, and in the letter was a note signed ' Quentina Jones/ Quentina was a younger sister, it seemed, 134 SIX STAR RANCH and she, too, wished to thank the girls. Of course the girls were delighted, and immediately answered it, signing themselves ' The Happy Hexagons.' The teacher went away then, and the girls heard noth- ing more. But they have talked of Quentina Jones ever since." " But it's all so wonderful," cried Genevieve, her voice rising dominant at last. " Where is Miss Alice Jones, and how is she ? " " She is better, thank you, though not very strong yet. She is teaching in Colorado." " Oh, I'm so glad," cried Genevieve, " but I wish we could see her, too. Only think, girls, of Quen- tina Jones being right here, only eighteen miles away ! " " One would think eighteen miles were a mere step ! " laughed Tilly. " They are in Texas," retorted Genevieve. Then, to the minister she said : " Now tell us, please, Mr. Jones, what we can do. We want io see Quen- tina right away, quick. We can't wait! Can she come over? Can't she? We'd love to have her!" The minister shook his head slowly. " I'm afraid not, Miss Genevieve thank you just the same. I'd love to have her. It would do her such a world of good, poor little girl, to have one happy time with all you young people ! But my wife has a lame foot just now, and Quentina simply SIX STAR RANCH 135 cannot be spared. You know she has several brothers, so we have quite a family. But, I'll tell you what you young ladies must all come to see us." " Oh, thank you ! We'd love to and we will, too." (Back in her ranch home, it was easy for Genevieve to slip into her old independent way of consulting no one's will but her own.) " When do you want us ? " " But, my dear," interposed Mrs. Kennedy, hastily, " if Mrs. Jones is not well, surely we cannot ask her to take in six noisy girls as guests ! " " Why, no of course not," stammered Gene- vieve. The rest of the Happy Hexagons looked suddenly heartbroken. But the minister smiled re- assuringly. " My wife isn't ill only lame ; and she loves young people. She'll be just as eager for you to come as Quentina will be and Quentina just sim- ply won't take ' no ' for an answer, I'm sure. She talked for days of the Happy Hexagons, after your letter came. You must come, only " he hesitated, " only I'm afraid you'll be a little cramped for room. A village parsonage isn't a ranch, you know. But, if you don't mind sort of picnicking, and having to stand up in the corner to sleep " he paused quizzically. " We adore standing up and sleeping in corners," declared Genevieve, promptly. 136 SIX STAR RANCH "Then shall we call it Tuesday?" smiled Mr. Jones. " But how can they go ? " questioned Mrs. Ken- nedy, in an anxious voice. "Why, they might ride it," began Mr. Hartley, slowly ; " still, that would hardly do even should the ponies come in time such a long trip when they haven't ridden any here, yet. I'll tell you. We'll let Carlos drive them over in the carriage early Tuesday morning. I reckon the seven of them can stow themselves away, somehow it holds six with room to spare on every seat. Then, Wednes- day afternoon, he can drive them back. Meanwhile, he can stay himself in the town and get some sup- plies that I'm needing." " But seems to me that gives us a very short visit/' demurred Mr. Jones, as he rose to take his leave. " Quite long enough for the good wife," de- clared Mrs. Kennedy, decisively. And thus the matter was settled. SIX STAR RANCH 137 CHAPTER XIi QUENTINA QUITE the most absorbing topic of conversation Monday was, of course, the coming visit to Quen- tina Jones. " But what is her name ? " demanded Mr. Hart- ley at last, almost impatiently. " It isn't ' Quen- tina,' of course. I know that man who was here Sunday would never have named a daughter of his ' Quentina.' " " Her name is f Clorinda Dorinda/ ' replied Genevieve. " She told us so in her letter; but she said she was always called ' Quentina/ I don't know why." " Whew ! I should think she would be," laughed Mr. Hartley. " Only fancy having to be called ' Clorinda Dorinda ' whenever you were wanted! " " Sounds like a rhyming dictionary to me," chuckled Tilly. " ' Clorinda, Dorinda, Lucinda, Miranda,' " she chanted. Mr. Hartley laughed, and walked off. " Well, I'll leave her to you, anyhow, whatever she is," he called back. 138 SIX STAR RANCH " I'll bet he's just dying to go with us, all the same/' whispered Tilly, saucily. Cordelia frowned, hesitated, then spoke. " Auntie says ladies don't bet," she observed, in her severest manner. " Oh, don't they? " snapped Tilly; then she, too, frowned, and hesitated. " All right, Cordy Cor- delia; see that you don't do it, then," she concluded good-naturedly. Monday was a very quiet day for the girls at the ranch. Mrs. Kennedy had insisted from the first upon this. She said that the next two days would be quite exciting enough to call for all the rest possible beforehand. So, except for the usual watching of the boys' morning start to work, there was little but music, books, and letter-writing allowed. Tuesday dawned clear, but very warm. The girls were all awake at sunrise, and were soon ready for the early breakfast. Almost at once, afterward, they stowed themselves with little crowding but much giggling in the carriage, and called gayly to Carlos : " We're all ready! " " Yes, we're all aboard, Carlos," cried Genevieve. " Good, Senorita ! It is ver' glad I am to see you so prompt to the halter," grinned Carlos. " Quien sabef mebbe I didn't reckon on corrallin' the whole bunch of you so soon ! " Genevieve laughed, even while she made a wry face. SIX STAR RANCH 139 " I'm afraid Carlos remembers that I was never on time, girls," she pouted. " But you don't know, Carlos, what a marvel of promptness I've become back East specially since somebody gave me a watch," she finished, smiling into the old man's face. " All ready ! " grinned Carlos, climbing into his seat. " Let's give our Texas yell/' proposed Tilly, softly, as she looked back to see Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, and Mammy Lindy on the gallery steps. " Now count, Cordelia ! " And Cordelia did count. Once again her face ex* pressed a tragedy of responsibility, and once again the resulting "Texas, Texas, Tex Tex Texas! Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah! GENEVTEVE!" was the glorious success it ought to have been. So to a responsive chorus of shouts, laughter, and hand-clapping, the Happy Hexagons drove away from the ranch house. It was a pleasant drive, though a warm one. It did seem a little long, too, so anxious were they to reach their goal. The prairie sights and sounds, though interesting, were not so new, now. Even the two or three herds of cattle they met, and the 140 SIX STAR RANCH groups of cowboys they saw galloping across the prairies, did not create quite the excitement they always had created heretofore. Quentina and the minister's home were so much more interesting to think of! " What do you suppose she'll be like ? " asked Elsie. " Quien sdbef " laughed Genevieve. "There! what does that mean?" demanded Tilly. " I've heard it lots of times since I've been here." " ' Who knows ? ' translated Genevieve, smilingly. " Yes, who does know ? " retorted Tilly, not un- derstanding. "But what does it mean?" Genevieve laughed outright. "That's just what it means 'Who knows?' The Mexicans and the cowboys use it a lot here, and when I come back I get to saying it, too." " I should think you did," shrugged Tilly. " Well, anyhow, let's talk straight English for a while. Let's talk of Quentina. What do you sup- pose she's like, girls ? " " Let's guess," proposed Genevieve. " We can, you know, for Miss Jones was too sick to tell us anything, and we haven't a thing to go by but Quentina's letter, and that didn't tell much." " All right, let's guess. Let's make a game of it," cried Tilly. " We'll each tell what we think, SIX STAR RANCH 141 and then see who comes the nearest. You begin, Genevieve." " All right I think she's quiet and tall, and very dark like a Spaniard," announced Genevieve, weigh- ing her words carefully. " I think she's bookish, and maybe stupid/' de- clared Tilly. " Her letter sounded queer/' " I think she's little, and got yellow hair and light-blue eyes," said Bertha. " I think she's got curls black ones and looks lovely in red," declared Elsie Martin. " We can trust you, Elsie, to get in something about her clothes," chuckled Tilly. " Well, I think she's got brown eyes like Gene- vieve's, and brown hair like hers, too," asserted Alma Lane. " Now, Cordelia," smiled Genevieve, " it's your turn. You haven't said, yet." " There isn't anything left for me to say," replied Cordelia, in a slightly worried voice. " You've got all the pretty things used up. I should just have to say I think she's fat and homely and I don't think I ought to say that, for it would be a down- right fib. I don't think she's that at all ! " There was a general laugK at this; then, for a time, there was silence while the carriage rolled along the prairie road. Carlos had no difficulty in finding the' home of the Rev. Mr. Jones in Bolo. It proved to be a 142 SIX STAR RANCH little house, unattractive, and very plain. It looked particularly forlorn with its bare little front yard, in which some one had made an attempt to raise nasturtiums and petunias. " Mercy ! I guess we'll have to stand up in cor- ners to sleep," gurgled Tilly, as the carriage stopped before the side door. "Sh-h!" warned Genevieve. "Tilly, isn't it awful ? Only think of our Quentina' s living here ! " At that moment the door of the little house opened, and Mr. Jones appeared. From around his feet there seemed literally to tumble out upon the steps several boys of " assorted sizes," as Tilly ex- pressed it afterward. Then the girls saw her in the doorway Quentina. She was slender, not very tall, but very pretty, with large, dark eyes, and fine yellow hair that fluffed and curled all about her forehead and ears and neck. " O Happy Hexagons, Happy Hexagons, wel- come, welcome, Happy Hexagons ! " breathed the girl in the doorway ecstatically, clasping her hands. " Sounds almost like our Texas yell," giggled Tilly, under her breath. Genevieve was the first to reach the ground. " Quentina I know you're Quentina ; and I'm Genevieve Hartley," she cried, before Mr. Jones had a chance to speak. " Yes, this is Quentina," he said then, cordially shaking Genevieve's hand. " And now I'll let you SIX STAR RANCH 143 present her to your young friends, please, because you can do it so much better than I." They were all out now, on the ground, hanging back a little diffidently. It was this, perhaps, that made Cordelia think that something ought to be said or done. She came hurriedly forward as she caught Genevieve's eye and heard her own name called. " Yes, I'm Cordelia, and I'm so glad to see you," she stammered ; " and I'm so glad you're not fat and homely, too er that is," she corrected feverishly, " I mean we didn't any of us get you right, you know." "Get me right?" Quentina opened her dark eyes to their fullest extent. Cordelia blushed, and tried to back away. With her eyes she implored Tilly or Elsie to take her place. It was Genevieve who came to the rescue. " We'll have to own up, Quentina," she laughed. " On the way here we were trying to picture how you look; and of course we each had to guess a different thing, so we got all kinds of combinations." " Yes, but we didn't get yours," chuckled Tilly, coming easily forward, with outstretched hand. " Indeed we didn't," echoed Elsie, admiringly. " Why, of course we couldn't," stammered Cor- delia, still red of face. " We never, never could think of anything so pretty as you really are ! " 144 SIX STAR RANCH Quentina laughed now, and raised hurried hands to hide the pretty red that had flown to her cheeks. " Oh, you funny, funny Happy Hexagons ! " she cried, in her sweet, Southern drawl. Naturally there could be nothing stiff about the introductions, after that, and they were dispatched in short order, even to Mr. Jones's pulling the boys into line, and announcing: " This is Paul, with the solemn face. And this grinning little chap is Edward Ned, for short ; and these are the twins, Bob and Rob." "Are they both ' Robert ' ? " questioned Tilly, in- terestedly. Mr. Jones smiled. " Oh, no. Bob is Bolton, and Rob is Robert. The ' Rob and Bob ' is Quentina's idea she likes the sound of it." "I told you! she is a rhyming dictionary," whispered Tilly, in an aside that nearly convulsed the two girls that heard her. Inside the house they all met " mother." Mother, in spite of her lame foot, was a very forceful personality. She was bright and cheery, too, and she made the girls feel welcome and at home immediately. " It's so good of you to come ! " she exclaimed. " Poor Quentina has been shut up with me for weeks. But I'm better, now lots better; and I shall soon be about again." SIX STAR RANCH 145 " I think it was very good of you to let us come/' returned Genevieve, politely, " specially when you aren't well yourself. But we'll try not to make you any more trouble than we can't help." " Trouble, dear child ! I reckon we don't call you trouble," declared the minister's wife, fervently, " after all your kindness to my daughter, Alice." Genevieve raised a protesting hand, but Mrs. Jones went on smilingly. " And then that letter to Quen- tina she's never ceased to talk and dream of the girls who sent it to her." " Oh, I did like it so much indeed I did," chimed in Quentina. " Why, Genevieve, I made a poem on it a lovely poem just like Tennyson's ' Margaret,' you know; only I put in * Hexagons/ and changed the words to fit, of course." Tilly nudged Elsie violently, and Elsie choked a spasmodic giggle into a cough; but Quentina un- hesitatingly went on. " It began : ' l O sweet pale Hexagons, O rare pale Hexagons, What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower? Why sent you, loves, so full and free, Your letter sweet to little me? ' THat's just the first, you know," smiled Quentina, engagingly, " and of course when I wrote it I didn't 146 SIX STAR RANCH know you weren't really 'pale/ at all; but then, we can just call that part poetic license." Genevieve laughed frankly. Tilly giggled. Cor- delia looked nervously from them to Quentina. "I'm sure, that that's very pretty," she fal- tered. Mrs. Jones smiled. " I'm afraid, for a little, you won't know just what to make of Quentina," she explained laugh- ingly. " We're used to her turning everything into jingles, but strangers are not." " Oh, mother, I don't," cried Quentina, reproach- fully. " There's heaps and heaps of things that I never wrote a line of poetry about. But how could I help it? that beautiful letter, and the Happy Hexagons, and all! It just wrote itself. I sent it East, too, to a magazine, two or three times but they didn't put it in," she added, as an afterthought. " Why, what a shame ! " murmured Tilly. Genevieve looked up quickly. Tilly was wearing her most innocent, most angelic expression, but Genevieve knew very well the naughtiness behind it. Quentina, however, accepted it as pure gold. "Yes, wasn't it?" she rejoined cheerfully. "I felt right bad, particularly as I was going to send you all a copy when it was published." :< You can give us a manuscript copy, Quentina. We would love that," interposed Genevieve, hur- riedly. Behind Quentina's back she gave Tilly then SIX STAR RANCH 147 a frowning shake of the head though it must be confessed that her dancing eyes rather spoiled the effect of it. " Maybe it's because her name rhymes ' Clo- rinda Dorinda,' ' suggested Tilly, interestedly ; " maybe that's why she likes to write poetry so well." Mrs. Jones laughed. " That's what her father says. But Clorinda her- self changed her own name about as soon as she could talk. She couldn't manage the hard ' Clo- rinda ' very well, and I had a Mexican nurse girl, Quentina, whose name she much preferred. So very soon she was calling herself ' Quentina,' and insisting that every one else should do the same." " But it's so much prettier," declared the minis- ter's daughter, fervently. " Of course ' Clorinda Dorinda ' are some pretty, because they rhyme so, but I like ' Quentina ' better. Besides, there are lots more pretty words to make that rhyme with Florena, Dulcina, Rowena, and verbena, you know." " And ' you've seen her/ ' suggested Tilly, gravely. Quentina frowned a moment in thought. " Y-yes," she admitted ; " but I don't think that's a very pretty one." It was Genevieve this time who choked a giggle into a cough, and who, a moment later, turned very eagerly to welcome an interruption in the person of the Rev. Mr. Jones. 148 SIX STAR RANCH Soon after this Quentina suggested a trip through the house. " You see I want to show you where you're going to sleep," she explained. " Oh, Mr. Jones told us that," observed Tilly, as the seven girls trooped up the narrow stairway. " He said we were to stand up in the corners." Tilly spoke with the utmost gravity. Quentina turned, wide-eyed. " Why, you couldn't ! You'd never sleep a -bit," she demurred concernedly. " Besides, it isn't nec- essary." All but Tilly and Genevieve tittered audibly. Tilly still looked the picture of innocence. Gene- vieve frowned at her sternly, then stepped forward and put her arm around Quentina's waist. " Tilly was only joking, Quentina," she ex- plained. " When you know Tilly better you'll find she never by any chance talks sense but always nonsense," she finished, looking at Tilly severely. Tilly wrinkled up her nose and pouted; but her eyes laughed. " There, here's my room," announced Quentina, a moment later. " We've put a couch in it, and if you don't mind my sleeping with you, three can be here. Then across the hall here is the twins' room, and two more can sleep in this; and Paul and Ned's room down there at the end of the hall will take SIX STAR RANCH 149 the other two. There! You see we've got it fixed right well." "Oh, yes well for us; but how about the boys?" cried Genevieve. " Where will they sleep?" Quentina's lips parted, but before the words were uttered, a new thought seemed to have come to her. With an odd little glance at Tilly, she drawled de- murely : " Oh, they are going to sleep in the corners." They all laughed this time. " Well, now we've done the whole house, and we'll take the yard," proposed Quentina, as, a little later, she led the way down-stairs and out of doors. " There ! aren't my nasturtiums beautiful ? " she exulted, with the air of a fond mother displaying her first-born. She was pointing to a bed of strag- gling, puny plants, beautifully free from weeds, and showing here and there a few brilliant blossoms. Tilly turned her back suddenly. Cordelia looked distressed. Bertha cried thoughtlessly : " Oh, but you ought to see Genevieve's, Quentina, if you want to see nasturtiums ! " " Oh, but I have Carlos," cut in Genevieve, hur- riedly, " and Carlos can make anything grow. What a pretty dark one this is," she finished, bend- ing over one of the plants. Quentina's face clouded. " I don't suppose they are much, really," she ad- 150 SIX STAR RANCH mitted. "But I've worked so hard over them! Father says the earth isn't good at all. I was so pleased when that big red one came out! I made a poem on it right off : ' ' O nasturtium, sweet nasturtium, Did you blossom just for me? Where, oh, where did you unearth 'em All those colors that I see? ' That's the way it began. Wasn't I lucky to think of that 'unearth 'em?' Besides, it's really true, you know. They do unearth 'em, and 'twas such a nice rhyme for nasturtium. Now there's petunia; I think that's a perfectly beautiful sounding word, but I've never been able to find a single thing that rhymed with it. I do love flowers so," she added, after a moment ; " but we've never had many. They always burn up, or dry up, or get eaten up, or just don't come up at all. Of course we've never had a really pretty place. Ministers like us don't, you know," she finished cheerfully. There was no reply to this. Not one of the Happy Hexagons could think of anything to say. For once even Tilly was at a loss for words. It was Quentina herself who broke the silence. " Now tell me all about the East. Let's go up on the gallery and sit down. I do so want to go East to school ; but of course I can't." SIX STAR RANCH 151 " Why not? "asked Bertha. "Oh, it costs too much," returned Quentina. " You know ministers don't have money for such things." Her voice was still impersonally cheerful. " How old are you? " asked Elsie, as they seated themselves on chairs and steps. " Sixteen last month." " Oh, I wish you could go," cried Genevieve. " Wouldn't it be just lovely if you could come to Sunbridge and go to school with us ! " : ' Where is Sunbridge ? I always thought of it as just ' East/ you know." " In New Hampshire." " Oh," said Quentina, with a sigh of disappoint- ment. " I hoped it was in Massachusetts, near Boston, you know. I thought Alice said it was near Boston." " Well, we aren't so awfully far from Boston," bridled Tilly. " It only takes an hour and a half or less to go there. I go with mother every little while when I'm home." Quentina sprang to her feet. " Boston ! Oh, girls, you don't know how I want ^o see Boston, and Paul Revere's grave, and the Common, and the old State House, and Bunker Hill, and that lovely North Church where they hung the lantern, you know. ' Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,' " 15 SIX STAR RANCH she began to chant impressively. " Oh, don't you just love that poem? " "Who was Paul Revere ?" asked Tilly, pleas- antly. "Paul Revere!" exclaimed Quentina, plainly, shocked. " Who was Paul Revere! " " Tilly ! " scolded Genevieve, as soon as she could command her voice. " Quentina, that's only some of Tilly's nonsense. Tilly knows very well who Paul Revere was." "Yes, of course she does; and we all do," in- terposed Elsie Martin. " But I'll own right up, I don't know half as much about all those historical things and places as I ought to." " Neither do I," chimed in Bertha. " Just be- cause they're right there handy, and we can go any time, we " " We don't go any time," laughed Alma Lane, finishing the sentence for her. " I know it," said Elsie. " We had a cousin with us for two weeks last summer, and she just doted on old relics and graveyards. She made us take her into Boston 'most every day, and she asked all sorts of questions which I couldn't answer." " Yes, I know ; but excuse me, please/' put in ' Tilly, flippantly. " I don't want any graveyards and relics in mine." " That's slang, Tilly/' reproved Cordelia. " Is it ? " murmured Tilly, serenely. SIX STAR RANCH 153 " Besides, people come from miles and miles just to see those things that we neglect, right at our doors, almost." " But how can you neglect them ? " remonstrated Quentina. " Why, if I ever go to Boston, I sha'n't sleep nor eat till I've seen Paul Revere's grave!" " Well, I shouldn't sleep nor eat if I did/' shud- dered Tilly. ' You mean you've never seen it ? " gasped Quen- tina, unbelievingly. "Guilty!" Tilly held up her hand unblush- ingly. " Never you mind, Quentina," soothed Genevieve. " We are interested in those things, really." " Then you have seen it? " " Er n-no, not that one," confessed Genevieve, coloring. " But I've seen heaps of other graves there," she assured her hopefully, as if graves were the only open door to Quentina's favor. " Oh, you've had such chances," envied Quen- tina. " Just think Boston ! You said you were near Boston ? " " Oh, yes." " Less than two hours away? " "Why, yes," exclaimed Tilly, "I told you. We're less than an hour and a half away." " And are you a D. A. R., and Colonial Dames, and Mayflower Society members, and all that ? " 154 SIX STAR RANCH " Dear me ! I don't know, 1 " laughed Genevieve. "Why?" " And do you read the Atlantic Monthly, and eat beans Saturday night, and fishballs Sunday morn- ing?" still hurried on Quentina. "You don't any of you wear glasses, and I don't think you speak very low." " Anything else ? " asked Tilly politely. " Oh, yes, lots of things," answered Quentina, " but I've forgotten most of them." "Quentina, what are you talking about?" laughed Genevieve. Quentina smiled oddly, then she sighed. " It wasn't true, of course. I knew it couldn't be." "What wasn't true?" " Something I found in one of father's church papers about Rules for Living in New England. I cut it out. Wait a minute it's here, somewhere ! " And, to the girls' amazement, she dived into a pocket at the side of her dress, pulling out several clippings which seemed, mostly, to be verse. One was prose, and it was on this she pounced. " Here it is. Listen." And she read: ' Rules for Living in New England. You must be descended from the Puritans, and should belong to the Mayflower Society, or be a D. A. R., a Colo- nial Dame, or an S. A. R. You must graduate from Harvard, or Radcliffe, and must disdain all other SIX STAR RANCH 155 colleges. You must quote Emerson, read the Atlan- tic Monthly, and swear by the Transcript. You must wear glasses, speak in a low voice, eat beans on Saturday night, and fishballs on Sunday morn- ing. Always you must carry with you a green bag, and you should be a professional man, or woman, preferably of the literary variety. You should live not farther away from Boston than two hours' ride, and of course you will be devoted to tombstones, relics, and antiques. You may tolerate Europe, but you must ignore the West. You must be slow of speech, dignified of conduct, and serene of temper. You must never be surprised, nor display undue emotion. Above all, you must be cultured/ " Now you see you haven't done all those things/' she declared, as she finished the article. " I reckon there are a few omissions specially on my part," laughed Genevieve. " But you are happy there ? " "Indeed I am!" " How I do wish I could go," sighed Quentina. " I should love Boston, I know. Alice did though she still liked Texas better." " Well, I know Boston would love you," chuckled Tilly, unexpectedly. " Girls, wouldn't she be a pic- nic in Sunbridge? She'd be more of a circus than you were, Genevieve ! " " Thank you," bowed Genevieve, with mock stiff- ness. 156 SIX STAR RANCH " Oh, we loved you right away and we should Ouentina, of course." " Thank you," bowed Quentina, in her turn, laughingly. SIX STAR RANCH 157 CHAPTER XII THE OPENING OF A BARREL' IT was a merry afternoon and evening that the Happy Hexagons spent at Quentina's home, and it was still a merrier time that they had getting settled for the night. Even Tilly said at last: " Well, Quentina, it's lucky a lame foot doesn't have ears. I don't know what your mother will say to us!" " Only fancy if Miss Jane were here," shivered Genevieve. It was just as the family were finishing breakfast the next morning that there came a knock at the door, and a man rolled in a large barrel. " Oh, it's the missionary barrel our barrel from the East!" cried Quentina. "I wonder now what do you suppose there is in it? " " There isn't anything, I reckon, except old things," piped up Rob, shrilly. Mrs. Jones colored painfully. " Robert, my son ! " she remonstrated, in evident distress. " Well, mother, you know there isn't most generally," defended Robert. 158 SIX STAR RANCH " And if they are new, they're the sort of things we couldn't ever use," added Ned. " Boys, boys, that will do," commanded the minis- ter, quickly. The minister, with Paul's help, had the barrel nearly open by this time. "It isn't from Sunbridge, is it?" asked Gene- vieve. " No though we get them from there some- times; but this is from a little town in Vermont," replied Mrs. Jones. " We had a letter last week from the minister. He he apologized a little ; said that times had been hard, and that they'd had trouble to fill it. As if it wasn't hard enough for us to take it, without that ! " she finished bitterly, with almost a sob. " Rita, my dear! " murmured her husband, in a low, distressed voice. Mrs. Jones dashed quick tears from her eyes. " I know ; I don't mean to be ungrateful. But times have been a little hard with us! " Silent, and a little awed, the Happy Hexagons stood at one side. Genevieve, especially, looked out from troubled eyes. Very slowly Genevieve was waking up to the fact that not every one in the world had luxuries, or even what she would call ordinary comforts of living. Mrs. Jones, seeing her face, spoke hurriedly. "There, there, girls, please forget what I said! SIX STAE RANCH 159 It was very kind of those good people to send the barrel very kind ; and I am sure we shall find in it just what we want." " I know what you hope will be there," cried Bob, " a new coat for Father, and a dress for you, and some underclothes for us boys. I heard you say so last night." " Yes ; and Quentina wants a ribbon not dirty ones/' observed Rob. " Robert! " cried Quentina, very red of face. " You know I don't expect anything of the sort." The barrel was open now, and eagerly the family gathered around it. Even Mrs. Jones's chair was drawn forward so that she, too, might peep into it. First there was a great quantity of newspapers the people had, indeed, found trouble to fill it, evidently. Next came a pincushion faded pink satin, frilled with not over-clean white lace. " I can use the lace for a collar," cried Quentina, taking prompt possession of the cushion. " I'm right glad of this ! " A picture came next in a tarnished gilt frame evidently somebody's early attempts to paint nastur- tiums in oil. " There's a rival for your posies out in the yard," murmured Tilly in Quentina's ear. A pair of skates was pulled out next, then three dolls, one minus an arm. 160 SIX STAR RANCH " These might be good on ice/' remarked Paul, who had picked up the skates. " Do you ever have any ice to skate on, here? " asked Bertha. " Not in the part of Texas I've ever been in," he sighed. Mrs. Jones was ruefully smoothing the one-armed doll's flimsy dress. "I I told them there were no little girls in the family," she said, her worried eyes seeking her hus- band's face. " It it's all right, of course ; only only these dolls did take space." Some magazines came next, and a few old books, upon which the boys fell greedily though the books they soon threw to one side as if they were of little interest. Undergarments appeared then, plainly much worn and patched. To Genevieve they looked quite impossible. She almost cried when she saw how eagerly Mrs. Jones gathered the motley pile into her arms and began to sort them out with little ex- clamations of satisfaction. Next in the barrel were found an ink-stained apron, a bath-robe, nearly new which plainly owed its presence to its hideous colors two or three tin dishes (not new), a harmonica, a box con- taining a straw hat trimmed with drooping blue bows, several fans, a box of dominoes, a 'pocket- knife with a broken blade, several pairs of new hose, SIX STAR RANCH 161 marked plainly " seconds," some sheets and pillow- cases (half-worn, but hailed with joy by Mrs. Jones), a kimono, an assortment of men's half- worn shoes pounced upon at once by Paul and his father, and not abandoned until it was found that only two were mates, and only one of these good for much wear. It was at this point that there came a muffled shout from Ned, whose head was far down in the barrel. " Here's a package *- a big one and it's marked ' dress for Mrs. Jones/ Mother, you did get it, after all ! " he cried, tumbling the package into his mother's lap. Tremblingly half a dozen pairs of hands at- tempted to untie the strings and to unwrap the coverings; then, across Mrs. Jones's lap there lay a tawdry dress of pale-blue silk, spotted and soiled. Pinned to it was a note in a scrawling feminine hand : " This will wash and make over nicely, I think, if you can't wear it just as it is." " We have so many chances to wear light-blue silk, too," was all that Mrs. Jones said. In the bottom of the barrel were a few new towels, very coarse, and some tablecloths and small, fringed napkins, also very coarse. " Well, I'm sure, these are handy/' stammered the minister, who had not found his coat. " Oh, yes," answered his wife, wearily ; " only 162 SIX STAR RANCH well, it so happens that every box for the last five years has held tea-napkins and I don't give many teas, you know, dear." Genevieve choked back a sob. "I I never saw such a a horrid thing in 'all my life, as that barrel was," she stormed hotly. " I don't see what folks were thinking of to send such things ! " " They weren't thinking, my dear, and that's just what the trouble was," answered Mrs. Jones, gently. " They didn't think, nor understand. Besides, there are very many nice things here that we can use beautifully. There always are, in every box, only of course, some things aren't so useful." " I should say not ! " snapped Genevieve. " Well, I didn't suppose anything could make me glad because Aunt Kate makes over the girls' things for me," spoke up Elsie Martin ; " but something has now. She can't send them in any missionary boxes, anyhow ! " Mrs. Jones laughed, though she looked still more disturbed. " But, girls, dear girls, please don't say such things," she expostulated. " We are very, very grateful indeed we are; and it is right kind of them to remember us far-away missionaries with boxes and barrels ! " " ' Missionary ' ! " sputtered Genevieve. " ' Mis- sionary ' ! I should think somebody had better be SIX STAR EANCH 163 missionary to them, and teach them what to send. Dolls and skates, indeed ! " " But, my dear," smiled Mrs. Jones, " those might have been just the things in some places; and besides, some of the boxes are are better than this. Indeed they are ! " It was at this point that Cordelia came forward hurriedly, and touched Mrs. Jones's arm. Her face was a little white and strained looking. " Mrs. Jones," she faltered, " I think I ought to tell you. I'm a minister's niece, and I've seen lots of missionary boxes packed. I know just how they do it, too. I know just how thoughtless they I mean we are; and I just wanted to say that I'm very, very sure the next time we pack a box for any missionary, we'll we'll see that our old shoes are mates, and that we don't send dolls to boys ! " There was a shout of gleeful appreciation from the boys, but there were only troubled sighs and frowns on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Jones. " Dear me ! I I wish the barrel hadn't come when you w r ere here," regretted the minister's wife ; " for indeed the things are all very, very nice. In- deed they are ! " " And now let's go out to the flowers," proposed Quentina. " Maybe a new nasturtium has blos- somed." All but one of the girls had left the room when Mr. Jones felt a timid touch on his arm. 164 SIX STAR RANCH " Mr. Jones, could I speak to you just a minute, please ? " asked a low voice. " I'm Cordelia Wilson, you know." " Why, certainly, Miss Cordelia I What can I do for you ? " he answered genially, leading the way to the tiny study off the sitting room. " Well, I'm not sure you can do anything," re- plied Cordelia, with hesitating truthfulness. " But I wanted to ask : do you know anybody in Texas by the name of Mr. John Sanborn, or Mrs. 'Lizzie. Hig- gins, or Mr. Lester Goodwin, or Mr. James Hunt? " The minister looked a little surprised, " N-no, I can't say that I do," he said, slowly. Cordelia's countenance fell. "Oh, I'm so sorry ! You see I thought being a minister out here, so, you might know them." " But Texas is quite a large state," he re- minded her, with a smile. "I know," sighed the girl. "I've found that out." " Are these people friends of yours? " " Oh, no ; they're just a son, and a brother, and a cousin, and a runaway daughter that I'm looking, up for Sunbridge people." " Oh, indeed ! " The minister hoped his voice was politely steady. " Yes, sir. Of course I haven't had a chance to ask many people, yet only one or two of the cow- boys. One of them was named ' John/ but he wasn't SIX STAR RANCH 165 my John I mean, he wasn't the right John," cor- rected Cordelia with a pink blush. The minister coughed a little spasmodically be- hind his hand. As he did not speak Cordelia went on, her eyes a little wistful. c< Would you be willing, please, to take those names down on paper, Mr. Jones ? " " Why, certainly, Miss Cordelia,'' agreed the man, reaching for his notebook. " You see you are a minister, and you do meet people, so you might find them. I'd be so glad if you could, or if I could. They're all needed very much indeed they are. You see, Hermit Joe is so lonesome for his son, and Mrs. Snow so worried about Lizzie, and Mrs. Granger has lost her hus- band, so she hasn't anybody left but her cousin, now, and Miss Sally is so very poor and needs her brother so much." " Of course, of course," murmured the minister. A few moments later his notebook bore this entry, which had been made under Cordelia's care- ful direction : " Wanted: Information about John Sanborn . . whose father is lonesome, Mrs. Lizzie Higgins mother " worried, Lester Goodwin . cousin :< a widow, and James Hunt . . " sister " very poor." 166 SIX STAR RANCH " If I find any of these people I'll convey all your messages to the best of my ability," promised the minister. " Thank you. Then I'll go out now to the nas- turtiums," sighed the girl, contentedly. All too soon the visit came to a close, and all too soon Carlos appeared with the carriage. Then came hurried good-byes, full of laughter, tears, and prom- ises, with all the Jones family except the mother, grouped upon the steps and the mother's chair was close to the window. " Oh, Happy Hexagons, Happy Hexagons, Come again another day. Oh, don't forget me, Happy Hexagons, When you are so far away! " chanted Quentina, waving one handkerchief, and wiping her eyes with another. " Girls, quick ! give her the Texas yell," cried Genevieve in a low voice ; " only say ' Quentina ' at the end instead of my name. Now, remember 1 Quentina ' ! " she finished excitedly. "Good!" exulted Tilly. "Of course we will! Now count, Cordelia." A moment later, Quentina's amazed, delighted ears heard: "Texas, Texas, Tex Tex Texas! Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah! Quentina!" SIX STAR RANCH 167 Then, amidst a chorus of shouts and laughter, the carriage drove away. " Well, young ladies/' demanded Mr. Hartley, when the tired but happy Hexagon Club trooped up the front steps of the ranch house late that after- noon, " how about it ? What did you think of the fair Quentina? " " Think of her ! O Quentina, you should 'seen her ! " sang Tilly, in so perfect an imitation of the minister's daughter that the girls broke into peals of laughter. " She's lovely, Father honestly, she is," de- clared Genevieve, as soon as she could speak. "And so pretty!" added Cordelia, "and has such a sweet, slow way of speaking ! " " Such lovely dark eyes ! " this from Alma. " And such glorious hair all golden and kinky! " breathed Bertha. " And she looks just as pretty in her high- necked apron as she does in her white dress," cried Elsie. " Well, well, upon my soul ! What is this young lady a paragon?" laughed Mr. Hartley, raising his eyebrows. " I'll tell you just what she is, sir," vouchsafed Tilly, confidentially. " She is a rhyming dictionary, Mr. Hartley, just as I said in the first place; and I'd be willing to guarantee any time that she'd find 168 SIX STAR RANCH a rhyme for any word in this or any other language within two seconds after the gun is fired. If you don't believe it, you should hear her * unearth 'em ' on the ' nasturtium/ ' "Tilly, Tilly 1" choked Genevieve, convulsively. " Oh, but she said she couldn't find one for petunia," broke in the exact Cordelia. " You don't mean she actually writes poetry! " ejaculated Mrs. Kennedy. "Writes it! my dear lady!" (Tilly had as- sumed her most superior air.) " If that were all! But she talks it, day in and day out. Everything is a poem, from a letter to a scraggly nasturtium. She carries an unfailing supply of her own verses in her head, and of other people's in her pocket. If you ask for the butter at the table, you're never sure she won't strike an attitude, and chant: " ' Butter, Butter, Oh, good-by! Better butter ne'er did er fly.' " " I think I should like to see this young person," observed Mrs. Kennedy, when the laughter at Tilly's sally had subsided. " Maybe you will sometime. She wants to go East," rejoined Tilly. "She does? What for?" " Principally to see Paul Revere's grave, I be- lieve; incidentally to go to school." SIX STAR RANCH 169 " Oh, I wish she could come East to school ! " ex- claimed Genevieve. " So do I if she'd come to Sunbridge," laughed Tilly. " She takes things even more literally than Cordelia does. Sometime I'm going to tell her the moon is made of green cheese, and ask her if she doesn't want a piece. Ten to one if she won't an- swer that she doesn't care for cheese, thank you. Oh, I wouldn't ask to go to another show for a whole year if she should come to Sunbridge! " " Tilly ! I don't think you ought to talk like that," remonstrated Cordelia. " One would think that Quentina was a a vaudeville show." Tilly considered this gravely. "Why, Cordelia, do you know? I believe that is just what she is. Thank you so much for think- ing of it." "Tilly!" gasped Cordelia, horrified. Genevieve frowned. " Honestly, Tilly, I don't think you are quite fair," she demurred. " Quentina isn't one bit of a show. She's sweet and dear and lovely, with just some funny ways to make her specially inter- esting." "All right; we'll let it go at that, then," re- torted Tilly, merrily. " She's just specially inter- esting." " She must be," smiled Mrs. Kennedy. " In fact, I should very much like to see her, and I don't 170 SIX STAR RANCH believe Tilly means her comments to be quite so unkind as perhaps they sound," she finished with a gentle emphasis that was not lost on her young audience. SIX STAR RANCH 171 CHAPTER XIII THE PRAIRIE AND MOONLIGHT ONE by on? the long, .happy July days slipped away. There was no lack of amusement, no time that hung heavy there was so much to be seen,, so much to be done ! Very soon after the trip to Quentina's home, Mr. Tim produced from somewhere five 'stout little ponies, warranted to be broken to " skirts " which Genevieve had said would be absolutely nec- essary, as the girls would never consent to ride astride. It was a nervous morning, however, for five of the Happy Hexagons when the horses were led up to the door. Cordelia was frankly white-faced and trembling. Even Tilly looked a little doubtful, as she said, trying to speak with her usual lightness : " Oh, we know, of course, Genevieve, that these little beasts won't teeter up and down like Reddy's broncho; and we hope they'll bear in mind that Westerners ought to be politely gentle with East- erners, who aren't brought up to ride jumping jacks. But still, we can't help wondering." " Genevieve, I I really think I won't ride at 172 SIX STAR RANCH all to-day," stammered Cordelia, faintly; "that is, if you don't mind." " But I do mind," rejoined Genevieve, looking much distressed. " Of course, girls, I wouldn't urge you against your will, for the world; but we can't have half the fun here unless you ride, for we go everywhere, 'most, in the saddle. And, honestly, Mr. Tim says these horses are regular cows. Father told him he must get steady ones. Won't you please try it ? It will break my heart, if you don't. You see I've said so much to the boys, since I came, about your riding ! They were so surprised to think you could ride, and I was so proud to say you did!" " You you were ? " stammered Cordelia. " Yes." "Well, young ladies," called Mr. Tim, at that moment, " here's the steadiest little string of horses going ! Who'll have the first pick ? " " I will," cried Cordelia, wetting her dry lips, and speaking with a stern determination that yet did not quite hide the shake in her voice. " That is I don't care about my pick, but I'm going to ride right away quick ! " she finished, determined that at least Genevieve should not be ashamed of her. After all, it was only the first five minutes that were hard. The little horses were politeness itself, and seemed fully to realize the responsibilities of SIX STAR RANCH 173 their position. The girls, determined not to shame Genevieve, acquitted themselves with a grace and ease that brought forth an appreciative cheer from the boys as the young people rode away. " Now I feel as if I were in Texas/' exulted Tilly, drawing in a full breath of the fresh, early morning air. " I'm so glad so glad we're all in Texas," cried Genevieve, looking about her with shining eyes. According to Tilly, there was always " something doing " at the ranch house. The boys much to their own surprise, it must be confessed had adopted " the whole bunch " (as Long John called the young people), and were never too busy or too tired to display their skill as ropers or riders. Al- ways there was the fascinating morning start to work to watch, and frequently there was in the afternoon some wild little broncho that needed to be broken to the saddle, or to be trained to stop, wheel instantly, stand motionless, or to start at top speed, according to his master's wishes; all of which was a never-ending source of delight to un- accustomed Eastern eyes. For pleasant days there were, too, rides, drives to Bolo, picnic luncheons, and frolics of every sort. For rainy days there were games and music in the living room, to say nothing of letters from home to be read and answered. Most of the twilights 174 SIX STAR RANCH if fair were spent by everybody on the front gallery watching the golden ball in the west set the whole prairie, as well as the sky itself, on fire. In the early afternoon, of course, there was the in- evitable siesta Tilly's abhorred " naps." There were callers at the ranch house, too. Sometimes a cowboy from a neighboring ranch came to look after a lost pony, or to see if his cattle had strayed off the range through a broken fence. Sometimes a hunter or trapper would stop for a chat on his way to or from Bolo. Once Susie Billings in her khaki suit and cowboy hat came to spend the day; and once, on Sunday, Mr. Jones came to hold service again. Much to the girls' dis- appointment, Quentina did not come with him,. The mother's foot was better, Mr. Jones said, but the twins had come down with the whooping cough, and poor Quentina could not be spared to leave home. Sometimes a score of men and teams and cow- boys with their strings of horses would pass on their way to a round-up; and once two huge prairie schooners " docked in the yard," as Tilly termed it; and their weary owners, at Mr. Hartley's in- vitation, stopped for a night's rest. That was, indeed, a time of great excitement for the Happy Hexagons, for under Genevieve's fear- less leadership they promptly made friends with the sallow-faced women and the forlorn children, and SIX STAR RANCH 175 soon were shown the mysteries of the inside of the wagon-homes. " Mercy ! it looks just like play housekeeping ; doesn't it? " gurgled Tilly. " But it isn't play at all, my dear," replied one of the women, a little sadly. " Seems now like as if I ever had a home again what stayed put, that I'd be happy, no matter where 'twas. Ain't that the way you feel, Mis' Higgins?" " Yes," nodded the other woman, dully, from her perch on the driver's seat. " But I reckon my man ain't never goin' ter quit wheelin', now." Even Genevieve seemed scarcely to know what to reply to this; but a few minutes later she had succeeded in gaining the confidence of the several children hanging about their mothers' skirts. Laughingly, then, the young people trooped away together to look at the flowers all but Cordelia Wilson. Cordelia remained behind with the two women. " Please I beg your pardon but did you say your name was * Mrs. Higgins ' ? " she asked eagerly, turning to the woman on the driver's seat. "Why, no I didn't, Miss. But that's my name." * Yes, I know ; 'twas the other lady who called you that, of course; but it doesn't matter, so long as I know 'tis that." 176 SIX STAR RANCH " Oh, don't it?" murmured the woman, a little curiously. " No ; and you came from New Hampshire, once, didn't you ? " An odd look crossed the woman's face. " Well, I ain't sayin' that." " But you did please say that you did," begged Cordelia. " You see, I'm so anxious to find you! " A look that was almost terror came to the woman's eyes now. " I don't know nothin' what you're talkin' about, and I don't want to know, neither," she finished coldly, turning squarely around in her seat. Cordelia hesitated; then she stammered: " If if you think it's because your mother will scold you, I can assure you that she will not. She is very anxious to hear from you that's all. She's been so worried! She wants to know if you're do- ing well, and all that." "What are you talking about?" demanded the woman, turning sharply back to Cordelia. "Your mother." " My mother is dead, Miss." " Oh-h ! " gasped Cordelia. " You mean you aren't Mrs. Lizzie Higgins she that was Lizzie Snow of Sunbridge, New Hampshire, who eloped with Mr. Higgins and ran away to Texas years ago?" The woman laughed. Her face cleared. What- SIX STAR RANCH 177 ever it was that she had feared she evidently feared it no longer. " No, Miss. My name isn't * Lizzie/ and it wa'n't ' Snow/ and I never heard of Sunbridge, New Hampshire." " O dear ! " quavered Cordelia. " Mrs. Snow will be so sorry that is, of course she'll be glad, too; for you aren't - With a little gasp of dis- may Cordelia pulled herself up before the words were uttered, but not before their meaning was quite clear to the woman. " Oh, yes, she'll be glad, too, no doubt," she cut in bitterly; " because I'm not exactly what a woman would want for a lost daughter, now, am I ? " Cordelia blushed painfully. " Oh, please, please don't talk like that ! I am sure Mrs. Snow would be glad to find any one for a daughter she wants her so ! And she's her mother, you know." The woman's face softened. " All right," she smiled, a little bitterly. " If I find her I'll send her to you." " Oh, will you ? Thank you so much," cried Cordelia. " And there are some others, too, that I'm hunting for. Maybe you can find them trav- eling around so much as you do. If you've got a little piece of paper and a pencil, I'll just write them down, please." Thus it happened that when the prairie schooners 178 SIX STAR RANCH " sailed away " (again to quote Tilly), one of them carried a bit of paper on which had been written full instructions how to proceed should the wife of its owner ever run across John Sanborn, Lizzie Higgins, Lester Goodwin, or James Hunt. It was soon after this that the Happy Hexagons and Mr. Tim, returning on horseback from a long day on the range, met with a delay that would prevent their reaching the ranch house until some time after dark. " Oh, goody ! I don't care a bit," chuckled Gene- vieve, when she realized the facts of the case. " There is a perfectly glorious moon, and now you can see the prairie by moonlight. And you never really have seen the prairie until you do see it by moonlight, you know ! " " But we have seen it by moonlight right from your steps," cried Tilly. " Oh, but not the same as it will be out here away from the ranch house," cried Genevieve. "You just wait! You'll see." And they did wait. And they did see. It did seem, indeed, that they never before had really seen the prairie; they all agreed to that, as they gazed in awed delight at the vast, silvery won- der all about them, some time later. " Why, it looks more than ever like the ocean," cried Bertha. FOLLOW ME QUICK!' HE ORDERED'' SIX STAR RANCH 179 " That grass over there actually ripples like water in the moonlight," declared Elsie. " I didn't suppose anything could be so beauti- ful," breathed Cordelia. " But, Genevieve, won't Mrs. Kennedy be dreadfully worried, at our being so late?" Genevieve gave a sigh. " Yes, I'm afraid so," she admitted. " Still, she has Father to comfort her, and he'll remind her that Mr. Tim is with us, and that delays are always hap- pening on a day's run like ours." " I wish she could see this beautiful sight herself," cried Alma. " She wouldn't blame us, then, for going wild over it and not minding if we are a little hungry." Tilly, for once, was silent. * " Well ? " questioned Genevieve, after a time, riding up to her side. " I don't know any one only Quentina who could do justice to it," breathed Tilly. And, to Genevieve's amazement, the moonlight showed a tear on Tilly's cheek. There was a long minute of silence. The moon was very bright, yet the many swift-flying clouds brought moments of soft darkness, and cast weird shadows across the far-reaching prairie. " I think I smell a storm coming sometime," sniffed Mr. Tim, his face to the wind. 180 SIX STAR RANCH u Wouldn't it be lovely to have it come while we were out here," gurgled Tilly. " Hardly ! " rejoined Mr. Tim with emphasis. " I reckon you needn't worry about that storm for some hours yet. I'll have you all safely corralled long before it breaks never fear." " I wasn't fearing. I was hoping," retorted Tilly in a voice that brought a chuckle to the man's lips. A moment later Mr. Tim stopped his horse and pointed to the right. " Do you see that black shadow over there ? " he asked Bertha Brown, w r ho was nearest him. "Yes. From a cloud, isn't it?" Bertha, too, stopped to look. " I think not. It's a bunch of cattle, I reckon. I think I make out the guards riding round them." "What is it, Mr. Tim?" Genevieve and the other girls had caught up with them now. " Cattle over there. See ? " explained Mr. Tim, briefly. At that moment the moon came out unusually clear. " I can see two men on horseback, passing each other," cried Bertha. Mr. Tim nodded. ' Yes the guard. They ride around the bunch in opposite ways, you know." " Let's go nearer ! I want to see," proposed Tilly, trying to quiet the restless movements of her pony. SIX STAR RANCH 181 The man shook his head. " I reckon not, Miss Tilly. A stampede ain't what I'm looking for to amuse you all to-night." " What's a stampede? " asked Tilly. " Mr. Tim, look quick ! " Genevieve's voice was urgent, a little frightened. But the man had not needed that. With a sharp word behind his teeth, he spurred his horse. " Follow me quick ! " he ordered. And with a frightened cry they obeyed. Genevieve obeyed, too but she looked back over her shoulder. The moon was very bright now. The black shadow to the right had become a wedge-shaped, compact, seething mass, sweeping rapidly toward them. There was a rushing swish in the air, and the sound of hoarse shouts. A few moments later the maddened beasts swept across their path, well to the rear. " I'll answer your question, now, Miss Tilly," said Mr. Tim, as they reined in their horses and looked backward at the shadowy mass. " That was a stampede." " But what will they do with them? " chattered Cordelia, with white lips. " How can they ever stop them?" " Oh, they'll head them off get them to run- ning in a circle, probably, till they can quiet them and make them lie down again." 182 SIX STAR RANCH " And will they be all right then ? " shivered Elsie. "Hm-m; yes," nodded Mr. Tim, " till the next thing sets them going. Then they'll be again on their feet, every last one of them heads and tails erect. Oh, they're a pretty sight then they are!" "They must be," remarked Tilly. "Still well, I sha'n't ask you again what a stampede is not to-night." Mr. Tim laughed. " Well, Miss Tilly, 'tain't likely I could show you one if you did. I don't always keep 'em so handy ! And now I reckon we'd better hit the trail for the Six Star, and be right lively about it, too," he added, " or we'll be having Mis' Kennedy out here herself on a broncho after ye! " Half an hour later a white-faced, teary-eyed little woman at the Six Star Ranch was trying to get her joyful arms around six girls at once. It was the next morning, and just before Mr. Tim's predicted storm broke, that the girls found the injured man almost hidden in the tall grass near the ranch house. They had gone out for a short ride, but had kept near shelter owing to the threaten- ing sky. Tilly saw the man first. " Genevieve, there's a man down there," she cried softly. " He's hurt, I think." Genevieve was off her horse at once. The man SIX STAR RANCH 183 was found to be breathing, but apparently uncon- scious. He lay twisted in a little huddled heap, with one of his legs bent under him. He groaned faintly when Genevieve spoke to him. Genevieve was a little white when she straight- ened up. " I think we'll have to get a wagon, or some- thing, and two of the boys," she said. " I'll ride back to the house if some of you girls will stay here." "We'll all stay," promised Cordelia; "only be quick," she added, slipping from her pony's back, and giving the reins to Bertha. " Maybe if I could hold his poor head he'd be more comfortable." Cautiously she sat down on the ground and lifted the man's head to her lap. He groaned again faintly, and opened his eyes. They were large and dark. For a moment there was only pain in their depths; then, gradually, there came a look of pro- found amazement. " Where am I ? " he asked feebly. " Sh ! Don't talk. You are on the prairie. You must have got hurt, some way." He tried to move, and groaned again. "Please be still," begged Cordelia. "You'll make things worse. We've sent for help, and they'll be here right away." The man closed his eyes now. He did not speak again. 184 SIX STAR RANCH- It seemed a long time, but it was really a very short one, before Genevieve came with Carlos and Pedro and one of the ranch wagons. The man groaned again, and grew frightfully white when they lifted him carefully into the wagon. Then he fainted. He was still unconscious when they reached the ranch house. SIX t STAR RANCH 185 CHAPTER XIV A MAN AND A MYSTERY AUGUST came. The first few days of the month were particularly busy ones as some of the boys were off to a round-up on the fifth, and Mr. Hart- ley was going with them for a week. To the girls the big four-horse wagon for the food and bedding the " wheeled house " that was to be home for the boys was always an object of great interest. Then there was the excitement of the start on the day itself, which this time was made particularly momentous by the going of Mr. Hartley. The ranch house seemed very lonely without its genial, generous-hearted owner, and everybody was glad that he had promised to come back in a week. Meanwhile, of course, there was " the man." The man was he who had been found by the girls in the prairie grass. He was still almost as much of a mystery as ever. Mr. Hartley had insisted upon his staying and, indeed (though no bones were broken), he was quite too badly injured to be moved for a time. He was able now to sit in the big comfortable chairs on the back gallery; and he spent hours there every day, sometimes reading, 186 SIX STAR RANCH more often sitting motionless, with his dark eyes closed, and his hands resting on his crutches by his side. He had not seemed to care to talk of himself. He had merely said that his horse had thrown him, and that he had lain in the grass for some time be- fore he was found. He was quiet, had good man- ners, and used good language. He said that his name was John Edwards. He seemed deeply grate- ful for all kindness shown him, but was plainly anx- ious to be well enough to be on his way again. Mr. Hartley, however, had won his promise to remain till he himself returned from the round-up. All the young people did their best to make the injured man's time pass as pleasantly as possible; and very often one or another of them might be found reading to him, or playing a game of checkers or chess with him. It was on such an occasion that Cordelia Wilson, at the conclusion of a game of checkers, found the courage to say something that had long been on her mind. " Mr. Edwards, do do you know Texas very well?" The man smiled a little. " Well, Miss Cordelia, Texas is rather large, you know." Cordelia sighed almost impatiently. " Dear me ! I I wish every one wouldn't al- SIX STAR RANCH 187 ways say that," she lamented. " It's so discourag- ing! " " Dis couraging? " " Yes when you're trying to find some one." " Oh ! And are you trying to find some one ? " " Yes, sir ; four some ones." " Well, I should think that might be difficult in Texas, unless you know where they are," smiled the man. "I don't; and that's what's the matter," sighed Cordelia. " That's why I was going to ask you, to see if you didn't know, perhaps." "Ask me?" ''Yes. That is, if you had been around any in Texas. You see I ask everybody, almost. 1 have to," she apologized a little wistfully. " And even then it looks as if I should have to go back to Sunbridge without finding one of them. And I'd so hate to do that!" The man started visibly. "Go back where?" " To Sunbridge." "Sunbridge?" " Sunbridge, New Hampshire; home, you know." An odd expression crossed the man's face. " No I didn't know," he said, after a mo- ment. " Why, didn't any of us ever tell you we were from the East ? " cried Cordelia. 188 SIX STAB RANCH,. " Oh, yes, lots of times. But you never hap- pened to mention the town before, I think." " Why, how funny ! " murmured Cordelia. The man did not speak. He seemed to have fallen into a reverie. Cordelia stirred restlessly in her seat. "Did you say you would help me?" she asked at last, timidly. " Help you ? " The man seemed to have forgot- ten what she had been speaking of. " Help me to find them, you know those people I'm looking for." " Why, of course," laughed the man, easily. " Who are " He stopped abruptly. For the second time an odd expression crossed his face. " Are they Sunbridge people ? " he asked, stoop- ing to pick up a dried leaf from the gal- lery floor. " Yes, Mr. Edwards. There are four of them three men and one woman. They are John San- born, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. Maybe you know some of them. Do you?" " Well, Miss Cordelia," - the man stopped a minute, as he reached for a leaf still farther away "is that quite to be expected?" he asked then, lightly. " No, I suppose not," she sighed ; " for, of course, Texas is big. But if you would please just put their SIX STAR RANCH 189 names down on paper same as the others have, that would help a great deal." " Why, certainly," agreed the man, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a little notebook not unlike the minister's. " Now suppose you you give me those names again, Miss Cordelia." " John Sanborn, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. And I am Cordelia Wil- son, you know. Just ' Sunbridge, New Hampshire,' would reach me if you found any of them." "I'll remember if I find any of them," mur- mured the man, as he wrote the last name. " And thank you so much ! " beamed Cordelia. There was a moment's silence. The man wa, playing with his pencil. " Did you say you were asked to find these people ? '*' he inquired at last, examining the lead of his pencil intently. " Oh, yes, sir." " Indeed ! And may I inquire who asked you?" " Why, of course ! The people who belong to them who are so anxious for them to come back, you know." "Oh, then they want them?" The man was still examining the point of his pencil. " Indeed they do, Mr. Edwards," cried Cordelia, glad to find her new audience so interested. " Mrs. Lizzie Higgins eloped years ago, and her mother, 190 SIX STAR RANCH Mrs. Snow, is terribly worried. She's never heard a word from her. Mrs. Granger is a widow, and very poor. Her husband died last year. She hasn't any one left but 'her cousin, Lester Goodwin, now, and she so wishes she could find him. Lester's had some money left him, but if he isn't found this year, it'll go to some one else." " Oh ! " The man gave a short little laugh that sounded not quite pleasant, as he lifted his head suddenly. " I begin to see. Mrs. Granger thinks if she had Lester, and Lester had the money, why she'd get the money, too, eh ? " " Oh, no, sir not exactly," objected Cordelia. " You see, if he isn't found the money goes to 'her, so she thinks she ought to make a special effort to find him. She says she wouldn't sleep a wink if she took all that money without trying to find him; jo she asked me. Of course the lawyers are hunt- ing, anyway." " Oh-h ! " said the man again ; but this time he did not laugh. " Hm-m ; well are there any fortunes left the other two ? " he asked, after a moment's silence. He had gone back to his pencil point. " Oh, no, sir," laughed Cordelia, a little ruefully. " I'm afraid they won't think so. They're wanted to help folks." "To help folks!" " Yes, sir. You see John Sanborn's father is SIX STAR RANCH 191 very poor, and he lives all alone in a little bit of a house in the woods. He's called ' Hermit Joe/ " " Yes go on," bade the man, as Cordelia stopped for breath. The man's voice was husky perhaps because he had stooped to pick up another dried leaf. " There isn't much more about him, only he's terribly lonesome and wants his boy, he says. You see, the boy ran away years and years ago. I don't think that was very nice of him. Do you ? " There was no answer. The man sat now with his hand over his eyes. Cordelia wondered if per^ haps she had tired him. " And that's all," she said hurriedly; " only Sally Hunt's brother, James. If he isn't found she'll have to go to the Poor Farm, I'm afraid." "What?" Cordelia started nervously. The man had turned upon her so sharply that his crutches fell to the floor with a crash. " Oh, sir, I beg your pardon," she apologized, springing to her feet. " I'm so afraid you were asleep, and I startled you. I I will go now. And and thank you ever so much for writing down those names ! " The man shook his head decidedly. " Don't go," he begged. " You have not tired me, and I like to hear you talk. Now sit down, 192 .SIX STAR RANCH please, and tell me all about these people this James Hunt's sister, and all the rest." " Oh, do you really want to know about them? " cried Cordelia, joyfully. " Then I will tell you ; for maybe it would help you find them, you know." " Yes, maybe it would," agreed the man, in a curiously vibrant voice, as Cordelia seated herself again at his side. " Now talk." And Cordelia talked. She talked not only then, but several times after that, and she talked always of Sunbridge. Mr. Edwards seemed so interested in everything and everybody there, though specially, of course, in the relatives of the four lost people she was trying to find which was natural, cer- tainly, thought Cordelia, inasmuch as he, too, was going to search for them in the weeks to come. Mr. Edwards improved in health very rapidly these days. He discarded his crutches, and seemed feverishly anxious to test his strength on every oc- casion. Upon Mr. Hartley's return from the round-up, the injured man insisted that he was |quite well enough to go away; and, in spite of the kind ranchman's protests, he did go the next day after Mr. Hartley's return. Carlos drove him to Bolo, and the Happy Hexagons stood on the ranch- house steps and gave him their Texas yell as a sendoff, substituting a lusty " MR. EDWARDS " for Genevieve's name at the end. " That is the most convenient yell," chuckled SIX STAR; RANCH 193 Tilly, as the ranch wagon with Carlos and Mr. Ed- wards drove away. " It'll do for anything and anybody. And didn't Mr. Edwards like it ! " " Of course he did ! He couldn't help it," cried Genevieve. " I think Mr. Edwards is a very nice man," ob- served Cordelia, with emphasis, " and I wish he could have stayed for the party." :< Why, of course he's a nice man," chimed in the other girls, eyeing her earnest face a little curi- ously. "Who said he wasn't?" laughed Tilly. "My! but it is hot, isn't it? " she added, dropping into one of the big wicker chairs near her. " Oh, of course we have to have some warm weather," bridled Genevieve, " else you'd be home- sick for New Hampshire ! " " The mean annual temperature of the country near " began Tilly, mischievously; but Gene- vieve put her hands to her ears and fled. The fourteenth of August was to be a gala occa- sion at the Six Star Ranch, for there was to be a supper and dance to entertain the friends from the East. "But where'll you get your guests?" demanded Tilly, when she first heard of the plan. " Whom can you have, 'way off here like this? all will please take notice that I said 'whom'!" 194 SIX STAR RANCH Genevieve laughed and tossed her head a little. " Well, we'll have the boys here on the ranch, of course, and Susie Billings, and some of the other Bolo girls. We can't have Quentina, of course Poor thing! Isn't it a shame about that whooping cough ? and Ned's got it, too, now, you know ! but I think the Boyntons will come. Their ranch is only thirty-five miles away, and they could stay all night, of course." " Only thirty-five miles away/' repeated Tilly, airily. "Of course nobody 'd mind a little thing like that, for a party ! " " No, they wouldn't in Texas," retorted Gene- neve. " There's the Wetherbys, too. They live five miles out from Bolo on the other side. Maybe they'll come. We'll ask them, anyhow. Oh, we'll have a party never you fear ! " When the night of the fourteenth arrived, things looked, indeed, very like "a party." Everywhere were confusion and excitement, even to the saddle room and blacksmith's shop, and to the two big tents that were being put up for extra sleeping quarters. Everywhere, too (Mrs. Kennedy de- clared), were dishes 'heaped with chocolate candies. Mr. Edwards, who had left the ranch only the day before, had sent back by Carlos twenty-five pounds of the best candy Bolo could supply; and the girls had been lavish in its disposal. Five Wetherbys and six Boyntons had arrived SIX STAR RANCH 195 together with a dozen cowboys on horseback. Susie Billings, minus her khaki and cartridges, looked the picture of demureness in white muslin and baby- blue ribbons. There were other pretty girls, too, from Bolo, in white, and in pale pink and yellow. And everywhere were the Happy Hexagons, wildly excited, and delighted with it all. The big hall and the living-room had been cleared for dancing. The galleries and the long covered way leading to the dining-room had been decorated with flowers and lanterns. The long table in the dining-room was decorated, too, and would later be loaded with all sorts of good things: sandwiches, hot biscuits, tamales, cakes, and black coffee without sugar. In the center of the table already there was a huge round white something that called forth de- lighted clappings from the Happy Hexagons as they flocked in at seven o'clock to look at the table deco- rations. " Oh, what a lovely cake," gurgled Tilly, " and such a big one ! " Genevieve laughed mischievously. " I'll give you the whole cake if you'll cut if," she proposed. With manifest alacrity Tilly reached for a knife. "Done! "she cried. Before the knife descended, Genevieve caught her hand. " Wait ! Look here," she parleyed. Taking the 196 SIX STAR RANCH knife, she thrust its point through the elaborate white frosting, with two or three gentle taps. "Why, it's hard! hard as stone," ejaculated Tilly, trying for herself. " It is stone," laughed Genevieve. " Stone ! " cried a chorus of unbelieving voices. " Yes, stone frosted with sugar and the whites of eggs. Oh, if you'd lived in Texas as long as I have you'd have seen them before," nodded Gene- vieve. " Well, I've got my opinion of Texas cakes, then," pouted Tilly, with saucy impertinence. "Oh, you'll change it later, I reckon when you see the real ones," rejoined Genevieve, com- fortably, as they left the dining-room. There never had been, surely, such a party. All the Happy Hexagons agreed to that. So, too, did all the guests. Perhaps on no one's face was there a look of anxious care except on Cordelia's. Pos- sibly Mr. Hartley noticed this look. At all events he watched Cordelia rather closely, as the evening advanced, particularly after he chanced to overhear some of her remarks to his guests. Then he sought his daughter. " Dearie," he began in a low voice, leading her a little to one side, " what in the world ails that little Miss Cordelia ? " " Ails her! What do you mean? Is she sick? " " No, I don't think so; but she looks as if she'd SIX STAR RANCH 197 got the weight of the whole outfit on her shoulders, and she seems to be going 'round asking everybody if they knew John somebody, or Lizzie somebody else." Genevieve laughed merrily; but almost at once she frowned and shook her head. " No, I don't know, Father, what is the matter. But Cordelia is capable of anything, if once her conscience is stirred. Why don't you ask her your- self?" " I believe I will, dearie/' he asserted at last. Five minutes later he chanced to find Cordelia without a partner. " Miss Cordelia, will you accept an old man for this dance ? " he asked genially. " And shall we sit it out, perhaps ? " " Oh, thank you ! I'd love to," cried Cordelia in a relieved voice. " And I shall be so glad to rest!" " Tired dancing? " he asked. " Oh, no, not dancing; that is well " She stopped, and colored painfully. Mr. Hartley waited a moment, then observed with a smile: ' You seem to be looking for some one to-night, Miss Cordelia. Didn't I hear you asking Mr. Boyn- ton and Joe Wetherby if they knew John somebody or other?" Again a pink flush spread over Cordelia's face. 198 SIX STAR RANCH " Yes, sir ; I am looking for somebody four somebodies." "You don't say! Found them yet?" She shook her head. To the man's surprise and distress, her eyes filled with tears. " No, Mr. Hartley, and that's what's the trouble. That's why I'm trying so hard to-night to ask all these people there's such a little time left ! " "Time left?" " Yes. I'd like to tell you about it, please. I think I may tell you. Of course I haven't said a word to the girls, because the people back in Sun- bridge didn't want me to talk about it. I'm look- ing for John Sanborn, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. They're all Sunbridge people who came to Texas years ago, and are lost." Mr. Hartley gave a sudden exclamation. " Did you say Lester Goodwin was one ? " he asked. "Yes, sir." " Who wants him, and what for? " Patiently Cordelia told him. She wore a hope- less air. She had ceased, evidently, to expect any- thing that was good. Mr. Hartley gave a low whistle. For a moment he was silent, then he chuckled unexpectedly. " Well, Miss Cordelia, if you hadn't looked so far away for your pony you might have seen his SIX STAR RANCH 199 tracks nearer home, perhaps. As it happens, Les- ter Goodwin is right here on the ranch." "Here? Lester Goodwin?" gasped Cordelia. " Yes. Oh, he isn't known by that name he preferred not to be. He came to me fourteen years ago, and he's been here ever since. He said he wanted to be a cowboy; that he'd always wanted to be one ever since when, as a little boy, he used to rope his rocking-horse with his mother's clothes- line. His uncle had wanted him to be a teacher, but he hated the sight of books; so when his uncle died, he ran away and came here. He said there wasn't anybody to care where he was, or what he did; so I let him stay." " And to think he's here now ! " " He certainly is. You see he came here because he knew me once a little when I was in Sunbridge visiting relatives, years ago, and he knew I had be- come a ranchman in Texas. He begged so hard that I should keep his secret that I've always kept it. Besides, there was nothing to keep. Nobody ever asked me, or suspected he was here." " Why, how strange ! " breathed Cordelia, with shining eyes. " And only think how I've asked everybody but you and now I've found one of them right here ! " " Yes though we mustn't be too sure, of course. We'll tell him; but maybe he won't want to go back, even now. I reckon, however, that 200 SIX STAR RANCH when he hears of the money, Reddy won't mind his real name being known.' 7 "Reddy!" cried Cordelia. "Oh! I didn't tell you, did I?" smiled Mr. Hartley. " Yes, Reddy is Lester Goodwin." " Why, Mr. Hartley ! And I never thought of such a thing as asking him! I only looked for the cowboys who were called ' John ' or ' James,' or 1 Lester ' and there weren't many of those. And so it's Reddy why, I just can't believe it's true ! " " I reckon Reddy can't, either," laughed Mr. Hartley. " And now we'll let you go back to your dancing, my dear. I've already encountered at least four pairs of glowering eyes unpleasantly pointed in my direction. I'll go and find Reddy or rather, Mr. Lester Goodwin," he finished impres- sively, as he rose to his feet. SIX STAR RANCH 201 CHAPTER XV THE ALAMO Two days after the party at the ranch house, Mr. Hartley made a wonderful announcement at the dinner table. " What do you say, young ladies, to a visit to San Antonio ? " he began. "Father, could we? Do you mean we can?' 3 cried Genevieve. " Yes, dear, that's just what I mean. It so hap- pens I've got business there, so I'm going to take you home 'round by that way. We'll have maybe a couple of days there, and we'll see something of the surrounding country, besides. You know Texas is quite a state and you've seen mighty little of it, as yet." " Oh, girls, we'll see the Alamo ! " cried Gene- vieve. "Did you realize that?" "Will we, truly?" chorused several rapturous voices. " Yes." " And what do you know about the Alamo, young ladies ? " smiled Mr. Hartley. " We know everything," answered Tilly, cheer- 202 SIX STAR RANCH fully. " Mr. Jones's daughter, you know, was our Latin teacher, and she had the History class, too. Well, we couldn't even think Bunker Hill but what she'd pipe up about the Alamo. Now I think Bun- ker Hill is pretty good! " " Oh, but we want to see the Alamo, just the same," interposed Bertha, anxiously. " Of course ! " cried five emphatic girlish voices. " All right," laughed Mr. Hartley. " You shall see it, all of you if the train will take us there; and you'll see well, you'll see a lot of other things, too." Cordelia stirred uneasily. The old anxious look came back to her eyes. When dinner was over she stole to Mr. Hartley's side. " Mr. Hartley, please, shall we see an oil well ? " she asked, in a low voice. " Bless you, little lady, what do you know about oil wells?" smiled the man, good-naturedly. " You haven't got any of those to look up, have you?" To his dumbfounded amazement, she answered simply : "Yes, sir one." " Well, I'll be well, just what is this proposi- tion ? " he broke off whimsically. " If you'll wait just a minute I'll get the paper," panted Cordelia. " Mr. Hodges wrote down the name." SIX STAR RANCH 203 Very soon she had returned with the paper, and Mr. Hartley saw the name. His face hardened, yet his eyes were curiously tender. " I'm afraid, little girl, that this won't come out quite so well as the Reddy affair by the way, Reddy left an extra good-by for you this morn- ing. He went away before you were up, you know. He feels pretty grateful to you, Miss Cordelia/' " But I didn't do anything, Mr. Hartley. I do wish I could see Mrs. Granger when he gets there, though. I I'm afraid she doesn't like cowboys much better than Mrs. Miller does." There was a moment's silence. Mr. Hartley was scowling at the bit of paper in his hand. " Did you say you didn't know where that oil well was, Mr. Hartley?" asked Cordelia, timidly. " Yes. I don't know where it is and I reckon there doesn't anybody else know, either," he an- swered slowly. " I know where it claims to be, and I know it is just one big swindle from begin- ning to end." " Oh, I'm so sorry," sighed the girl. " So am I, my dear. I'm sorry for Mr. Hodges, and lots of others that I know lost money in the same thing. But it can't be helped now." " Then there aren't any oil wells here at all in Texas?" asked Cordelia, tearfully. " Bless you, yes, child heaps of them ! You'll 804 SIX STAR RANCH see them, too, probably, before you leave the state. But you won't see this one." " Oh, I'm so sorry/' mourned Cordelia, again, as sadly she took the bit of paper back to her room. It was not many days before the Happy Hexa- gons said good-by to the ranch a most reluctant good-by. It was a question, however, which felt the worst: Mammy Lindy, weeping on the gallery steps, Mr. Tim and the boys, waving a noisy good-by from their saddles, or Mrs. Kennedy and the Happy Hexagons the latter tearfully giving their Texas yell with "THE RANCH" for the final word to-day. " I think I never had such a good time in all my life," breathed Cordelia. " I know I never did," choked Tilly. " Gene- vieve, we can't ever begin to thank you for it all!" "I I don't want you to," wailed Genevieve, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. " I reckon you haven't had any better time than I have!"' Quentina wa's at the Bolo station; so, too, was Susie Billings. " O Happy Hexagons, Happy Hexagons, I just had to come " chanted Quentina, standing some distance away, and extending two restraining hands, palms outward. " Don't kiss me don't SIX STAR RANCH 205 come near me! I don't think I've got any whoop- ing germs about me, but we want to be on the safe side." " But, Ouentina, how are you? How are all of you? " cried Genevieve, plainly distressed. " I think it's just horrid staying off at arm's length like this ! " " But you must, dear," almost sobbed Quentina. " I wouldn't have you go through what we are going through with at home for anything. Such a whoop whoop whooping time ! " "Couldn't you make a poem on it?" bantered Tilly. " I should think 'twould make a splendid subject you could use such sonorous, resound- ing words." Quentina shook her head dismally. " I couldn't. I tried it once or twice ; but all I could think of was ' Hark, from the tombs a dole- ful sound ' ; then somebody would cough, and I just couldn't get any further." Her voice was tragic in spite of its drawl. " You poor thing," sympathized Genevieve. " But we we're glad to see you, even for this little, and even if we can't feel you! But, Quen- tina, you'll write sure ? " " Yes, I'll write," nodded Ouentina, backing sor- rowfully away. " Good-by, Happy Hexagons, good-by ! " " So that is your Quentina ? " said Mr. Hartley 206 SIX STAB RANCH in a low voice, as the girls were waving their hands and handkerchiefs. " Well, she is pretty." " Oh, but she wasn't half so pretty to-day," re- gretted Genevieve. " She looked so thin and tired. I wanted to introduce you, Father, but I didn't know how to so far away." " I should say not," laughed Mr. Hartley. 'Twould have been worse than your high hand- shake back East," he added, as he turned to speak to Susie Billings, who had come up at that moment. Susie Billings was in her khaki suit and cowboy hat to-day, with the cartridge belt and holster; so, as it happened, the last glimpse the girls had of Bolo station was made picturesque by a vision of " Cordelia's cowboy" (as Tilly always called Susie) waving her broad-brimmed hat. The trip to San Antonio was practically unevent- ful, though it was certainly one long delight to the Happy Hexagons, who never wearied of talking about the sights and sounds of the wonderful coun- try through which they were passing. "Well, this isn't much like Bolo; is it?" cried Tilly, when at last they found themselves in the handsome railroad station of the city itself. " I shouldn't think Texas would know its own self half the time it's so different from itself all the time!" " That's all right, Tilly, and I think I know what SIX STAR RANCH 207 you mean," laughed Genevieve; "but I wouldn't advise you to give that sentence to Miss Hart as your best example of logic.'' "Well, I was talking about Texas," retorted Tilly, saucily, " and there isn't anything logical about Texas, that I can see. There, now look ! " she added, as they reached the street. " Just tell me if there's anything logical in that scene ! " she finished, with a wave of her hand toward the pass- ing throng. Genevieve laughed, but her eyes, too, widened a little as she stepped one side with the others, for a moment, to watch the curious conglomeration of. humanity and vehicles before them. In the street a luxurious limousine was tooting^ for a ramshackle prairie schooner to turn to one side. Behind the automobile plodded a forlorn mule dragging a wagon-load of empty boxes. Be- hind that came an army ambulance followed by an electric truck. A handsome soldier on a restive bay mare came next, and behind him a huge touring car with a pompous black chauffeur. On either side of the touring car rode a grinning boy on a mustang, plainly to the discomfort of the pompous negro and the delight of two pretty girls in white who were in the low phaeton that followed. A bicycle bell jangled sharply for a swarthy Mexican in a tall peaked hat to get out of the way, and farther down the street two solid-looking men in business suits 208 SIX STAR EANCH were waiting for a pretty Mexican woman with a rebosa-draped head to precede them into a car. Behind them a huge negro woman wearing a red bandana about her head, waited her turn. And still behind her a severe-faced young woman in a tailored suit was drawing her skirts away from two almost naked pickaninnies. "Well, no; perhaps it isn't really logical," laughed Genevieve. " But it's awfully interest- ing!" " I chose one of the older 'hotels," said Mr. Hart- ley, a little later, as he piloted his party through the doorway of a fine old building. " You couldn't have chosen a lovelier one, I'm sure, Father," declared Genevieve, as she looked about her with shining eyes. Genevieve was even more convinced of this when, just before dinner, in response to a summons from Tilly's voice she stepped out on to the little balcony leading from her room. The balcony overlooked an inner court, and was hung with riotous moon-vines. Down in the court a silvery fountain played among palms and banana trees. Here and there a cactus plant thrust spiny arms into the air. Somewhere else queen's wreath and devil's ivy made a tiny bower of loveliness. While everywhere were elec- tric lights and roses, matching one against the other their brilliant hues. "Genevieve, I I think I'm going to c-cry," SIX STAR RANCH 209 wailed Tilly's sobbing voice from the adjoining balcony. " Cry ! when it's all so lovely I " exclaimed Genevieve. Tilly nodded. 1 Yes. That's why I want to/' she quavered. " Honestly, Genevieve, if I stay here long I shall be writing poetry like Quentina I know I shall ! " " If you do, just let me read it, that's all," re- torted Genevieve, saucily. "Where's Cordelia?" " Off somewhere with Elsie and Bertha. She got dressed early but I sha'n't get dressed at all if I don't go about it." At that moment there was the sound of a scream, then the patter of running feet in the court below. c< Why, there they are now," cried Genevieve, leaning over the railing. " Girls, girls ! " she called, regardless of others in the court. " Look up here F What's the matter?" The girls stopped, and looked up. Cordelia, only, cast an apprehensive glance over her shoulder. " It's an alligator in the fountain in the other court," explained Elsie. " Bertha said she heard there was one there, and so we went to see and we found out." " I should say- we did," shuddered Cordelia, still with her head turned backward. " I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night I know I sha'n't ! " "An alligator really?" cried Tilly. "Then 210 SIX STAR RANCH I'm going to hurry and get ready so I can see him before dinner," she finished, as she whisked into her room. Dinner that night, in the brilliantly lighted, flower-decked dining-room was an experience never to be forgotten by the girls. " I didn't suppose there were such bea-w-tiful dresses in the world," sighed Elsie, looking about her. Mr. Hartley smiled. " I reckon you'd think so, Miss Elsie," he said, 41 if you could see the place when it's in full swing. It's too early yet for the real tourist season, I imag- ine. Anyhow, there aren't so many people here as I've always seen before." " Well, I shouldn't ask it to be any nicer, any- way," declared Bertha; and the rest certainly agreed with her. Bright and early the next morning the Happy Hexagons and Mr. Hartley started out sight-seeing. Mrs. Kennedy was too tired to go, she said. " I'll let business slip for an hour or two," 1 Mr. Hartley remarked as they left the hotel ; "at all events, until I get you young people started/' " Hm-m ; you mean, to the Alamo ? " hinted Genevieve, with merry eyes. " Sure, dearie ! The Alamo it shall be/' smiled lier father. " Then to-morrow I'll take you to Fort Sam Houston where there are live soldiers." SIX STAR RANCH 211 " Oh, is there an army post here, truly ? " cried Tilly. " Only the largest in the country," answered the Texan, proudly. "Really? Oh, how splendid! I just love sol- diers!" " Really? " mimicked Mr. Hartley, mischievously. " They'll be pleased to know it, I'm sure, Miss Tilly." The others laughed. Tilly blushed and shrugged her shoulders; but she asked no more questions about Fort Sam Houston for at least five min- utes. " Now where's the place the really, truly place ? " demanded Cordelia, in an awed voice, when the party had reached the Alamo Plaza. " The place the real place, Miss Cordelia," re- plied Mr. Hartley, " where the fight occurred, was in a court over there; and the walls were pulled down years ago. But this little chapel was part of it, and this is what everybody always looks at and talks about. The relics are inside. We'll go in and see them, if you like." " If we like ! " cried Genevieve, fervently. " Just as if we didn't want to see everything every single thing there is to see ! " she finished, as her father led the way into the dim interior under the watchful eyes of the caretaker. Even Tilly, for a moment, was silenced in the SIX STAR RANCH hush and somberness of the place. Genevieve stole to her father's side. Mr. Hartley, with bared head, was wearing a look of grave reverence. ' You appreciate it, don't you, Father?" she said softly. " You have always talked such a lot about it." He nodded. " I don't see how any one can help appreciating it," he rejoined, after a moment, looking up at the narrow, iron-barred windows. " Why, Genevieve, this is our Bunker Hill, you know." " I know," she said soberly. "How many was it? I've forgotten." " About one hundred and eighty on the inside here ; and all the way from two to six thousand on the outside accounts differ. But it was thou- sands, anyway, against one hundred and eighty and it lasted ten days or more." Genevieve shuddered. "And they all died?" " Every one of the soldiers. There was a woman and a young child and a negro servant left to tell the tale." " That's what it means on the monument, isn't it?" murmured Genevieve. "'Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat : the Alamo had none.' ' " Yes," said her father. " I've always wondered what Davy Crockett would have said to that. You know he was here." SIX STAR RANCH 213 " Wasn't he the one who said, * Be sure you are right, then go ahead ' ? " " Yes. And he went ahead straight to his death, here." Genevieve's eyes brimmed with tears. " Oh, it does make one want to be good and brave and true, doesn't it, Father?" " I reckon it ought to, little girl,'* he smiled gently. " It does," breathed Genevieve. A moment later she crossed to Tilly's side. Tilly welcomed her with subdued joyousness. " Genevieve, please, please mayn't we get out of this?" she begged. "Honestly, I feel as if I were besieged myself in this horrid tomb-like place. And and I like live soldiers so much better!" Genevieve gave her a reproachful glance, but in a moment she suggested that perhaps they had better g- " Oh, but that was lovely," she sighed, as they came out into the bright sunshine. " The care- taker told me they call it the ' Cradle of Liberty,' here; and I don't wonder." Tilly uptilted her chin already the sunshine had brought back her usual gayety of spirits. " Dear me! what a lot of cradles Liberty must have had! You know Faneuil Hall in Boston is one. Only think how far the poor thing must have SIX STAR RANCH traveled between naps if she tried to sleep in all her cradles!" Even Genevieve laughed but she sighed re- proachfully, too. " Oh, Tilly, how you can turn poetry into prose sometimes ! " Then she added wistfully : " How I wish I could see this Plaza on San Jacinto Day! " " What is that? " demanded Tilly. " The twenty-third of April. They have the Battle of the Flowers in the Plaza here, in front of the Alamo. I've always wanted to see that.'* " Hm-m; well, I might not mind that kind of a battle myself," laughed Tilly. SIX STAR RANCH 215 CHAPTER XVI TILLY CROSSES BRIDGES IN the afternoon the young people again started out to explore the town. This time Mr. Hartley was not with them. " But are you quite sure you won't get lost ? " Mrs. Kennedy demurred anxiously, as Genevieve was putting on her hat. " No, ma'am," returned Genevieve, with calm truthfulness and a merry smile. " But, dearie, it's daylight and there are six of us. What if we do get lost? We've got tongues in our heads, and we know the name of our hotel and of the street it's on." " Very well," sighed Mrs. Kennedy. Then, with sudden spirit she added : " Dear me, Genevieve ! I shall be glad if ever we get back to Sunbridge and I have you to myself all quiet again. I'm afraid you'll never, never settle down to just plain living after these irresponsible weeks of one long play- day." It was Genevieve's turn now to sigh. " I know, Aunt Julia. It will be hard, won't it? " she admitted. Then, with a quick change of man- 216 SIX STAR RANCH ner, she observed airily : " As if anything could be nicer than learning to cook, and keeping my stock- ings mended ! Why, Aunt Julia ! " The next mo- ment, with a breezy kiss, she was gone. It was a delightful afternoon that the girls spent rambling about the curiously interesting old town, which Cordelia impressively informed them was the third oldest in the United States. They tried to see it all, but they did not succeed in this, of course. They did stand in delighted wonder be- fore the San Fernando Cathedral with its square, cross-tipped towers; and they did wander for an entrancing hour in the old Mexican Quarter, with its picturesque houses and people, its fascinating chili and tamale stands, and its narrow, twisting streets, which Genevieve declared were almost as bad as Boston. "Boston!" bridled Tilly, instantly. "Why, Boston's tiniest, crookedest streets are great wide boulevards compared to these! Besides, when we are in Boston we don't have to cross a river every time we turn around." " I don't know about that," retorted Genevieve, warmly. " Just try to go over to Cambridge or Charlestown and see. I'm sure I think Boston's got lots of bridges." Tilly sniffed her disdain. " Pooh ! You're leaving Boston when you cross those bridges, Genevieve Hartley, and you know it. SIX STAR RANCH 217 But just look at them here! We haven't stirred once out of San Antonio, and I think I've crossed five bridges in the last seven minutes. I can imagine those old fellows who built this town getting tired of building houses, and saying : ' And now let's stop and build a bridge for the fun of it ! ' Genevieve laughed heartily. " You've won, Tilly. I'll give up," she chuckled. " I hadn't meant to tell you ; but there are thirteen miles of river twisting in and out through the city, and there are seventeen bridges." "Where did you find out all that?" demanded Tilly, suspiciously. " In a guidebook that I saw last night at the hotel. It's the same one, I reckon, that Cordelia's been giving all her information from," said Gene- vieve. "Hm-m;" commented Tilly. "Now I know I've crossed five bridges in the last seven minutes ! " " Well, I wouldn't care if there were forty miles of river and fifty bridges," retorted Genevieve, " if they'd all have such lovely green banks and dear little boats ! " " Nor I," agreed two or three emphatic voices. Everywhere and at every turn the girls found something of interest, something to marvel at. When tired of walking they boarded a car; and when tired of riding, they got off and walked. " Well, anyhow, folks seem to have a choice of 218 SIX STAR RANCH houses to live in," observed Tilly, her eyes on a quaint little white bungalow surrounded by heuisach and mesquite trees. " Yes, they do," laughed Genevieve Genevieve was looking at the next one to it : an old-fashioned colonial mansion set far back from the street, with a huge pecan tree standing guard on each side. " Well, seems to me just now a hotel would look the nicest of anything," moaned Cordelia, wearily. " Girls, I just can't go another step unless it's toward home," she finished despairingly. "Me, too," declared Tilly. "I'm just plum locoed, I'm that tired ! Say we hit the trail for the hotel right now. Come on ; I'm ready ! " Genevieve laughed, but she eyed Tilly a little curiously. " What do you suppose Sunbridge \vill say to your new expressions a la the wild and woolly West ? " she queried. " Just exactly what they said to you, Miss Gene- vieve," bantered Tilly. " Oh, but Genevieve's were natural," cut in Bertha, with meaning emphasis. " All the more reason why mine should be more interesting, then," retorted Tilly, imperturbably. And with a laugh Bertha and Genevieve gave it up, as with tired but happy faces, they set out for the hotel. SIX STAR RANCH 219 At breakfast the next morning, Mr. Hartley an- nounced cheerily: " We'll do the parks, to-day, and the Hot Sulphur Well and Hotel; and finish with dress parade at Fort Sam Houston/' " But what about your business? " asked Gene- vieve. Mr. Hartley laughed. " Oh, that's all done/' he answered ; then, as the puzzled questioning still remained in her eyes, he added, a little shamefacedly : " You see, there wasn't much business, to tell the truth, dearie. I reckon my real business was to show off the state of Texas to our young Easterners here." " You darling ! " cried Genevieve, rapturously, while all the rest of the Happy Hexagons stumbled and stuttered over their vain attempts at thanking him. " I declare ! I wish we could give him our Texas yell, right here," chuckled Tilly, turning longing eyes about the dining-room. " We would end with ' Mr. Hartley/ of course." " Tilly ! " gasped Cordelia, in open horror. " What is the Hot Sulphur Well, Mr. Hartley, please?" asked Elsie, who had not heard Tilly's remark. ' You'll have to ask some one who's been cured by it," laughed the man. " They say there are plenty that have been." 220 SIX STAR RANCH " Do you suppose it looks any like an oil well? " ventured Cordelia. " Sounds a bit hot, seems to me, for to-day," giggled Tilly. " I think I shall like the parks bet- ter." " All right ; we'll let you do the parks all of them," cooed Genevieve, wickedly. " There are only twenty-one, you know, my dear." " Genevieve Hartley, if you remember your les- sons next year one half as well as you have that abominable guidebook, you'll be at the head of your class ! " remarked Tilly, severely, as the others rose from the table, with a laugh. It was another long, happy day. The parks, as Tilly had predicted, proved to be cooler than the Hot Sulphur Well, and they certainly were more enjoyable, even though only two of Genevieve's an- nounced twenty-one were visited Brackenridge Park, and San Pedro Park. It was the former that Cordelia enjoyed the most, perhaps, for it was there that she saw her much-longed-for buffalo. Tired, but still enthusiastic, they reached the hotel in time to dress for the visit to Fort Sam Hous- ton, upon which Mrs. Kennedy was to accompany them. Getting dressed was, however, a grand flurry of excitement, for time and space were limited; and there was not one of the Happy Hexagons who did not feel that on this occasion, at least, every curl SIX STAR RANCH 221 and ribbon and shoe-tie must display a neatness that was military in its precision. Perhaps only Elsie of all the girls wept over the matter. Her eyes were red when she knocked at Genevieve's door. "Why, Elsie!" "Genevieve, I've come to say I can't go," choked Elsie. "Why, Elsie, are you sick?" " Oh, no ; it's clothes. Genevieve, I simply haven't anything to wear." " Nonsense, dear, of course you have ! We don't have to dress much for this thing. Where's your white linen or your tan or your blue? " " The white is too soiled, and the other two have worn places that show." " But there's your chambray that isn't worn." Elsie shook her head. " But I can't that, truly, Genevieve. It's got worse and worse every day, until now anybody can tell Cora and Clara apart ! " Genevieve choked back a laugh. She was frown- ing prodigiously when Elsie looked up. " I'll tell you, Elsie, I've got just the thing," she cried. " Wear my white linen it's perfectly fresh, and 'twill fit you, I'm sure." Elsie's face turned scarlet. " Oh, Genevieve ! I wouldn't I couldn't ! I'd never, never do such an awful thing," she gasped. SIX STAR RANCH " Why, what would Aunt Kate say? my wearing your clothes like that ! Oh, I never thought of your taking it that way ! Never mind I'll fix some- thing," she choke^l, as she turned and fled down the hall, leaving a distressed and almost an angry Genevieve behind her. For some minutes Genevieve busied herself with her own toilet, jerking hooks and ribbons into place with unnecessary force; then she turned despair- ingly to Mrs. Kennedy, whose room she was sharing. " Aunt Julia, what's the use of having anything to give, if folks won't take it when you give it?" she demanded, irritably. " Not having followed your thoughts for the last five minutes, my dear, I fear I'm unable to give you a very helpful answer," smiled Mrs. Kennedy, serenely. And Genevieve, remembering Elsie's shamed, red face, decided suddenly that Elsie's secret was not hers to tell. Half an hour later Mr. Hartley marshaled his party for -the start. '' You're a brave sight," he declared, smiling into the bright faces about him. " You're a mighty brave sight; and I'll leave it to anybody if even the boys in line to-day will make a finer show ! " The Happy Hexagons laughed and blushed and courtesied prettily; and only Genevieve knew that the smile on Elsie's face was a little forced Elsie was wearing the green chambray. SIX STAR RANCH There was an awed " Oh-h ! " of wonder and admiration when Mr. Hartley's party came in sight of the great parade grounds at Fort Sam Houston. There was a still deeper, longer, louder " Oh-h-h ! " when, sitting at one end of the grounds, the girls heard the first stirring notes of the band. To the Hexagon Club it was a most wonderful sight those long lines of men moving with such perfect precision. Fresh from the Alamo as the girls were, with the story of that dreadful slaughter in their ears to them it almost seemed that there 1 before them marched the brave men who years ago had given up their lives so heroically in the little chapel. It was Tilly who broke the silence. " Oh, I do just love soldiers," she cried, with a hurried glance sideways to make sure that Mr. Hartley in the next carriage could not hear her. " Don't you, Genevieve? " But Genevieve was too absorbed to answer. A little later the band played "The Star- spangled Banner," and there sounded the signal gun for the lowering of the colors. In the glorious excitement of all this, even Tilly herself forgot to talk. After dress parade a certain Major Drew, who knew Mr. Hartley, came up and was duly presented to the ladies. He in turn presented the officer of the day, who looked, to the Happy Hexagons, very SIX STAR RANCH handsome and imposing in sword and spurs. After this, at Major Drew's invitation, there was a visit to the officers' quarters, and on the Major's broad galkry there was a cooling refreshment of lemon- ade and root beer before the drive back to the hotel. SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER XVII " BERTHA'S ACCIDENT " IT had been decided that the party would go to New Orleans from San Antonio, and then from there by boat to New York. " It'll make a change from car-riding, and a very pleasant one, I'm thinking," Mr. Hartley had said; and the others had enthusiastically agreed with him. It was on the five-hundred-and-seventy-two mile journey from San Antonio to New Orleans that something happened. In the Chronicles of the Hexagon Club it fell to Genevieve to tell the story; and this is what she wrote : " It seems so strange to me that we should have traveled so many thousands of miles on the rail- road without anything happening; and then, just on the last five hundred (we are going to take the boat at New Orleans) to have it happen. " We have had all sorts of amusing experiences, of course, losing trains, and missing connections; but nothing like this. Even when we had to take that little bumpy accommodation for a few hours, and it was so accommodating it stopped every few SIX STAR RANCH minutes ' to water the horses/ as dear Tilly said, nothing happened though, to be sure, we almost did get left that time we all (except Aunt Julia) got off and went to pick flowers while our train waited for a freight to go by. But we didn't get quite left, and we did catch it. (Dear Tilly says we could have caught it, anyway, even if it had started, and that we shouldn't have had to walk very fast, at that! Tilly does make heaps of fun of all our trains except the fast ones on the main lines. And I don't know as I wonder, only I'd never tell her that, of course that is, I wouldn't have told her before, perhaps.) " Well, where was I ? Oh, I know on the sidetrack. (I had to laugh here, for it occurred to me that that was just where I was in the story on a sidetrack! I'm not telling what I started out to tell at all. It's lucky we can each take all the room we want, though, in these Chronicles.) " Well, I'll tell it now, really, though I'm still so shaky and excited my hand trembles awfully. It was in the night, a little past twelve o'clock that it happened. I was lying in my berth above Elsie's, and was wide-awake. I had been thinking about Father. He has been such a dear all the way. I was thinking what a big, big dear he was, when IT happened. ; ' Yes, I put IT in capitals on purpose, and I reckon you would, if suddenly the car you were SIX STAR RANCH 227 riding in began to sway horribly and bump up and down, and then stop right off short with a bang that flung you into the middle of the aisle! And that's what ours did. " For a minute, of course, I was too dazed to know what had happened. But the next moment I heard a scared voice wail right in my ear: ' Girls, it's an accident I know it's an acci- dent! I told you we should have an accident and to think I took off my shoes to-night for the very first time ! ' " I knew then. It was Bertha, and it was an accident. And, do you know? I'm ashamed to tell it, but the first thing I did right there and then was to laugh it seemed so funny about Bertha's shoes, and to hear her say her usual ' I told you so ! ' But the next minute I began to realize what it all really meant, and I didn't laugh any more. " All around me, by that time, were frightened cries and shouts, and I was so worried for Father and all the rest. I struggled, and tried to get up; and then I heard Father's voice call : ' Genevieve, Genevieve, where are you? Are you all right?' Oh, nobody will ever know how good that dear voice sounded to me! " We called for Aunt Julia, then, and for the girls ; but it was ever so long before we could find them. We weren't all together, anyway, and the crash had separated us more than ever. Besides, 228 SIX STAR RANCH everybody everywhere all over the car was crying out by that time, and trying to find folks, all in the dark. " We found Aunt Julia. She was almost tinder the berth near me ; but she was so faint and dazed she could not answer when we first called. I was all right, and so were Cordelia and Bertha, only Bertha bumped her head pretty hard afterwards, looking for her shoes. Elsie Martin and Alma Lane were a little bruised and bumped, too; but they declared they could move all their legs and arms. " We hadn't any of us found Tilly up to that time; but when Elsie said that (about being able to move all her legs and arms), I heard a little faint voice say ' You talk as if you were a centipede, Elsie Martin ! ' " ' Tilly ! ' I cried then. ' Where are you ? ' The others called, too, until we were all shouting fran- tically for Tilly. We knew it must be Tilly for nobody but Tilly Mack could have made that speech ! " At last we found her. She was wedged in under a broken seat almost at our feet. It was at the for- ward end of the car the only part that seemed to be really smashed. She could not crawl out, and we could not pull her out. She gave a moaning little cry when Father tried to. " * I guess some of my legs and arms don't SIX STAR RANCH 229 go,' she called out to us with a little sob in her voice. " We were crazy then, of course all of us ; and we all talked at once, and tried to find out just where she was hurt. The trainmen had come by this time with lanterns, and were helping every one out of the car. Then they came to us and Tilly. " And we were so proud of Tilly she was so brave and cheery! I never found out before what her nonsense was for, but I did find it out then. It was the only thing that kept us all from going just wild. She said such queer little things when they were trying to get her out, and she told them if there was any one hurt worse than she to get them out first. She told Father that she knew now just how Reddy felt when his broncho went see-saw up in the air, because that was what her berth did. " Well, they got the poor dear out at last, and ai doctor from the rear car examined her at once. Her left arm was broken, and she had two or three painful bruises. Of course that was bad but not anywhere near so bad as it might have been, and we were all so relieved. The doctor did what he could for her, then we all made ourselves as comfortable as possible while we waited for the relief train. " We found out then about the wreck, and the chief thing we could find out anywhere was what a ' fortunate ' wreck it was I The engine and six cars went off the track on a curve. Just ahead was a 230 SIX STAR RANCH steep bank with a river below it, and of course it was fortunate that we did not go down that. No one was killed, and only a few much injured. The car ahead and ours were the only ones that were smashed any. Yes, I suppose it was a l fortunate wreck ' but I never want to see an unfortunate one. Certainly we all felt pretty thankful that we had come out of it as well as we did. " The relief train came at last, and took us to the next city, and to-day we are started on our journey once again. We expect to reach New Orleans to- night, and take the boat for New York Saturday. We all feel a little stiff and sore, but of course dear Tilly feels the worst. But she tries to be just as bright and smiling as ever. She looks pretty white, though, and what the storybooks call ' wan/ I reckon. She says, anyhow, she wishes she were a centipede in arms because perhaps then she wouldn't miss her left one so much, if she had plenty more of them. There seems to be such a lot of things she wants her left arm to do. The doctor says it wasn't a bad break as if any break could be good! 11 And here endeth my record of ' Bertha's acci- dent ' as Tilly insists upon calling it, until she's made Bertha almost ready to cry over it." Owing to the delay of the accident, Mr. Hartley and his party had only one day in New Orleans be- SIX STAR RANCH 231 fore the boat sailed; but they made the most of that, for they wanted to see what they could of the quaint, picturesque city. " We'll take carriages, dearie. We won't walk anywhere/' said Mr. Hartley to Genevieve that morning. " In the first place, Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Tilly couldn't, and the rest of us don't want to. We can see more, too, in the short space of time we have." So in carriages, bright and early Friday morning, the party started out to " do " New Orleans, as Genevieve termed it. Leaving the " American por- tion," where were situated their hotel and most of the other big hotels and business houses of American type, they trailed 'happily along through Prytania Street and St. Charles Avenue to the beautiful " Garden District " which they had been warned not to miss. They found, indeed, much to delight them in the stately, palatial homes set in the midst of exquisitely kept lawns and wonderful groves of magnolia and oak. Quite as interesting to them all, however, was the old French or Latin Quarter below Canal Street, where were the Creole homes and business houses. Here they ate their luncheon, too, in one of the curious French restaurants, famous the world over for its delicious dishes. With the disappearance of the last mouthful on her plate, Tilly drew a long breath. " I've always heard Creoles were awfully interest- SIX STAR RANCH ing," she sighed. " Do you know I don't think I'd mind much being a Creole myself! " " You look so much like one, too," laughed Gene- vieve, affectionately, patting the soft, fluffy red hair above the piquant, freckled little face. At five o'clock that afternoon a tired but happy party reached the hotel in time to rest and dress for dinner. "Well," sighed Genevieve, "I'd have liked a week here, but a day has been pretty good. We've seen enough ' Quarters ' to make a ' whole,' and the Cathedral, and dozens of other churches, and we've driven along those lovely lakes with the unpro- nounceable names ; and now I'm ready for dinner/' " And we saw a statue the Margaret Statue," cut in Cordelia, anxiously. " You know it's the first statue ever erected to a woman's memory in the United States. We wouldn't want to forget that!" " Well, I should like to," retorted Genevieve, perversely. " It's only so much the worse for the United States that it wasn't done before!" " I think Genevieve is going to be a suffragette," observed Tilly, cheerfully, as they trooped into the hotel together. It was from New Orleans that Cordelia Wilson wrote a letter to Mr. William Hodges. She had decided that it would be easier to write her bad news than to tell it. Then, too, she disliked to keep SIX STAR RANCH 233 the old man any longer in suspense. She made her letter as comforting as she could. " MR. WILLIAM HODGES, SIR : " she wrote. " I am very sorry to have to tell you that I have looked, but cannot find your oil well anywhere. I did find a man who had heard about it, but he said there wasn't any well at all like what the Boston man told you there was. He said it was a bad swindle and he knew many others who had lost their money, too, which I thought would please you. O dear, no, I don't mean that, of course. I only mean that you might like to know that others be- sides you hadn't known any more than to put money in it, too. (That doesn't sound quite right yet, but perhaps you know what I mean.) " I hope you won't feel too bad about it, Mr. Hodges. I saw some oil wells when we came through Beaumont, and I am quite sure you would not like them at all. They are not one bit like Bertha's aunt's well on her farm, with the bucket. In fact, they don't look like wells at all, and I never should have known what they were if Mr. Hartley had not told me. They are tall towers standing up out of the ground instead of stone holes sunk down in the ground. (It is just as if you should call the cupola on your house your cellar and you know how queer that would be ! ) I saw a lot of them oil wells, not cupolas, I mean and they looked 234 SIX STAR RANCH more like a whole lot of little Eiffel Towers than anything else I can think of. (If you will get your grandson, Tony, to show you the Eiffel Tower in his geography, you will see what I mean.) Mr. Hartley says they do bore for them wells, I mean, not Eiffel Towers and so I suppose they do go down before they go up. " I saw the wells on the way between San An- tonio and New Orleans. One was on fire. (Just think of a well being on fire!) Of course we were riding through a most wonderful country, anyway. We saw a great many things growing besides oil wells, too, as you must know rice, and cotton, and tobacco, and sugar cane, and onions, and quan- tities of other things. I picked some cotton bolls. (I spelt that right. This kind isn't b-a-11.) I am sending you a few in a little box. It takes 75,000 of them to make one bale of cotton, so I'm afraid you couldn't make even a handkerchief out of these. " I am so sorry about the oil well, but I did the best that I could to find it. " Respectfully yours, " CORDELIA WILSON." SIX STAB RANCH 235 CHAPTER XVIII THE GOLDEN HOURS LONG -before ten o'clock Saturday morning the hour for sailing Mr. Hartley and his party were on board the big steamship which was to take them to New York. Here, again, new sensations and new experiences awaited the Happy Hexagons, not one of whom had ever been on so large a boat. " I declare, I do just feel as if I was going abroad," breathed Cordelia, in an awestruck voice, as she crossed the gangplank. " Well, I'm sure we are, almost," exulted Gene- vieve. ft We're going to have a hundred hours of it. You know that little pamphlet that told about it called it ' a hundred golden hours at sea.' Oh, Cor- delia, only think one hundred golden hours ! " " You'll think it's a thousand, if you happen to be seasick," groaned Tilly. (Tilly was looking rather white to-day.) " And they won't be golden ones, either they'll be lead ones. I know because I've been to Portland when it's rough." " Well, we aren't going to be seasick," retorted Genevieve, with conviction. " We're just going to have the best time ever. See if we don't! " 236 SIX STAR RANCH " Now, dearie," said Mr. Hartley, hurrying up at that moment, " I engaged one of the suites for Mrs, Kennedy, and I think Miss Tilly had better be with her. The bed will be much more comfortable for her poor arm than a berth would be, and Mrs. Ken- nedy can look after her better, too, in that way. The little parlor of the suite will give us all a cozy place to meet together. There are two berths there which they turn into a lounge in the daytime. I thought perhaps you and Miss Cordelia could sleep there. Then I have staterooms for the rest of us I engaged them all a week ago, of course. Now if you'll come with me I reckon we can set up housekeeping right away," he finished with a smile. " Setting up housekeeping " proved to be an ab- sorbing task, indeed. It included not only bestow- ing their belongings in the chosen places, but in- terviewing purser and stewards in regard to rugs, steamer chairs, and other delightfully exciting mat- ters. Then there was the joy of exploring the great ship that was to be their home for so many days. The luxurious Ladies' Parlor, the Library with its alluring books and magazines, the Dining Saloon with its prettily-laid tables and its revolving chairs (like piano stools, Tilly said), the decks with their long, airy promenades, all came in for delighted ex- clamations of satisfaction which increased to a chorus of oh's and ah's when the trip really began, SIX STAR RANCH 237 and the stately ship was wending its way down the Great River to the Gulf of Mexico. First there was to be seen the city itself, nestled beyond its barricade of levees. " Dear me! " shuddered Cordelia. " I don't be- lieve I'd have slept a wink last night if I'd realized how much below the river we were. Only fancy if one of those levees had sprung a leak ! " " Why, they'd have sent for the plumber, of course," observed Tilly, gravely. " Of course ! Still they don't look very leaky, to me," laughed Genevieve. " Was it here, or somewhere else, that a man (or was it a child?) put his arm (or was it a finger?) in a little hole in the wall and stopped the leak, and so saved the town ? " mused Bertha aloud dreamily. " Of course it was," answered Tilly with grave emphasis; and not until the others laughed did Bertha wake up enough to turn her back with a shrug. " Well, it was somewhere, anyhow," she pouted. " As if we could doubt that after what you said," murmured Tilly. " But they have 'had floods here, haven't they? " questioned Alma Lane. Genevieve gave a sudden laugh. At the others' surprised look she explained: " Oh, I'm not laughing at the real floods, the water floods they've had, of course. It's just that I 238 SIX STAR RANCH happened to think of something I read some time ago. They had one flood here of molasses." " Mo lass es ! " chorused several voices. " Yes. A big tank that the city used to have for a reservoir had been bought by a sugar company and turned into a storage for molasses. Well, it burst one day, and a little matter of a million gallons of molasses went exploring through the streets. They say some poor mortals had actually to wade to dry land." " Genevieve ! what a story," cried Elsie. " But it's true," declared Genevieve. " A whole half-mile square of the city was flooded, honestly. At least, the newspapers said it was." " How the pickaninnies must have gloried in it," giggled Tilly, " if they liked ' bread and per- lashes ' as well as I used to. Only think of having such a big saucerful to dip your bread into ! " " Tilly ! " groaned Genevieve. They were at Port Chalmette, now. The Cres- cent City lay behind them, and beyond lay the shining river-roadway, with its fertile, highly-culti- vated plantations bordering each side, green and beautiful. " How perfectly, perfectly lovely ! " cried Elsie. " And I'm not sick one bit." " Naturally not yet," laughed Tilly. " But you just wait. We don't sail the Mississippi all the way to New York, vou know." SIX STAR RANCH 239 " I wish we did," said Genevieve, her eyes dream- ily following the shore line. " But we're only on it for a hundred miles." " I don't," disagreed Elsie. " I want to see the Gulf Stream. They say it's a deep indigo blue, and that you can see it plainly. I think a blue river in a green sea must be lovely like a blue ribbon trailing down a light green gown, you know." :< Well, I want to see the real ocean, 'way out out. I want to see nothing but water, water every- where," declared Alma Lane. " ' And not a drop to drink/ " quoted Tilly. " Well, young lady, you may see the time when you'd give your eyes for a bit of land and just any old land would do, too, so long as it stayed put!" "What does it feel like to be seasick?" asked Cordelia, interestedly. " It feels as if the bottom had dropped out of everything, and you didn't much care, only you wished you'd gone with it," laughed Tilly. " Who was it ? wasn't it Mark Twain who said that the first half-hour you were awfully afraid you would die, and the next you were awfully afraid you wouldn't?" questioned Elsie. " I don't know ; but whoever said it knew what he was talking about," declared Tilly. " You just wait ! " 240 SIX STAR RANCH " We're waiting," murmured Genevieve, de- murely. " You young ladies don't want to forget your exercise," said Mr. Hartley smilingly, coming up at that moment with Mrs. Kennedy. " We've just been five times around the deck." " It's eleven laps to the mile," supplemented Mrs. Kennedy with a smile. " What's a lap? " asked Cordelia. " Sounds like a kitten on a wager with a saucer of milk," laughed Tilly, frowning a little as she tried to adjust her sling more comfortably. " Well, young ladies, we'll show you just what a lap is, if you'll come with us," promised Mr. Hart- ley; and with alacrity the girls expressed them- selves as being quite ready to be shown. On and on, mile after mile, down the great river swept the great ship until Forts Jackson and St. Philip were reached and left behind; then on and on for other miles to the narrow South Pass where on either side the Eads Jetties called forth exclama- tions of wonder. "Well, you'd better ' ah ' and ' urn/ " laughed Genevieve. " They happen to be one of the greatest engineering feats in the world; that's all." " How do you know that? " demanded Bertha. " Don't worry her," cut in Tilly, with mock sym- pathy. " Poor thing ! it's only a case of another guidebook, of course." SIX STAR RANCH 241 ;< Well, all is, just keep your weather eye open," laughed Genevieve, " for when we make the South Pass Lightship, then ho ! for the " " Broad Atlantic," interposed Tilly. " Well, not until you've passed through the little matter of the Gulf of Mexico," rejoined Genevieve ; while a chorus of laughing voices jeered : ;< Why, Tilly Mack, where's your geography? " " Don't know, I'm sure," returned Tilly, imper- turbably. " Haven't seen it since I studied up Texas," she finished as she turned away. The first night aboard ship was another experi- ence never to be forgotten by the Happy Hexagons. In the parlor of the suite Genevieve and Cordelia kept up such an incessant buzz of husky whispering and tittering that Mrs. Kennedy came out from the bedroom to remonstrate. " My dears, you mean to be quiet, I know ; but I'm sure you don't realize how it sounds from our room. Tilly is nervous and feverish to-night the day has been very exciting for her." " And she has tried so hard to keep up, and seem as usual, too," cried Genevieve, contritely. " Of course we'll keep still! Cordelia, I'm ashamed of you," she finished severely. Then, at Cordelia's amazed look of shocked distress, she hugged her spasmodically. "As if it wasn't all my fault," she chuckled. In other parts of the boat the rest of the party SIX STAR RANCH explored their strange quarters to the last corner; then made themselves ready to be " laid on the shelf/' as Elsie termed going to bed in the narrow berth. " I shall take off my shoes to-night," announced Bertha with dignity, after a long moment of silence. " If anything happens here we'll get into the water, of course, and I think shoes would only be a nui- sance." For a moment Elsie did not answer; then, almost hopefully she asked " I suppose if anything did happen we'd lose our clothes even if we ourselves were saved, wouldn't we?" " Why, I I suppose so." " Yes, that's what I thought," nodded Elsie, hap- pily. Elsie, at the moment, was engaged in taking off a somewhat unevenly faded green chambray frock. It was on the second day of the trip that Cordelia took from her suit-case a sheet of paper, worn with much folding and refolding, and marked plainly, " Things to do in Texas." " I suppose I might as well finish this up now," she sighed. " I'm out of Texas, and what is done is done; and what is undone can't ever be done, now." And carefully she spread the paper out and reached into her bag for her pencil. SIX STAR RANCH 243 When she had finished her work, the paper read as follows: See the blue bonnet the Texas state flower. Find out if it really is shaped like a bonnet. Didn't. Bring home a piece of prairie grass. Did. See a real buffalo. Did. (But it was in a park.) Find Hermit Joe Sanborn's son, John, who ran away to Texas twenty years ago. Didn't. See an Osage orange hedge. Did. See a broncho bursted (obviously changed over from "busted"). Did. Find out for Mrs. Miller if cowboys do shoot at sight, and yell always without just and due provoca- tion. Did. They do not. Cowboys are good, kind gentlemen; but they are noisy, and some rough- looking. See a mesquite tree. Did. Inquire if any one has seen Mrs. Snow's daughter, Lizzie, who ran away with a Texas man named Higgins. Did. (But could not find any one who had.) Pick a fig. Didn't. See a rice canal. Did. Find out what has become of Mrs. Granger's cousin, Lester Goodwin, who went to Texas four- teen years ago. Did. See cotton growing, and pick a cotton boll, called " Texas Roses." Did. See peanuts growing. Did. 244 SIX STAR RANCH Inquire for James Hunt, brother of Miss Sally Hunt. Did. (But could not find him.) See a real Indian. Did. Look at oil well for Mr. Hodges, and see if there is any there. Did. ( But there wasn't any there like the one he wanted.) The paper completed, Cordelia looked at it with troubled eyes. " It doesn't sound quite right," she thought. " Somehow, the things / wanted to do are 'most all done, but I didn't find but just one of those people, and seems as if I ought to have done better than that. Besides, I'm not at all sure Mrs. Granger will be satisfied with what I did find for her a cow- boy, so ! " And she sighed as she put the paper away. The trip across the Gulf of Mexico to Dry Tortu- gas Light was nothing but a rest and a joy to every- body. It was still delightful and wonderfully inter- esting all the way around the City of Key West and up by the southeastern coast of Florida with its many lights and coral reefs. Here Genevieve's guidebook came again into prominence. " The Sand Key Light 'way back there is our most southern possession, and only fifty-seven miles from the line of the Tropics," she announced glibly one day. " We're coming to the American Shoals SIX STAR RANCH 245 Light, the Sombrero Light, Alligator Light, Carys- fort Light and Fowey Rock Light." " Mercy! Didn't you sleep any last night? " in- quired Tilly, sympathetically. " I suppose you mean you think it must have taken all night to learn all that/' laughed Genevieve. " But it didn't" " Maybe you know some more, now," hazarded Tilly. " Certainly. After we strike Jupiter Light, we veer off into the Atlantic out of sight of land." " I thought lighthouses were put up so you wouldn't ' strike ' them," observed Tilly, with smooth politeness ; " but then, of course if you do strike them, it is quite to be expected that you veer off into the Atlantic, and never see land again. Be- sides, I found all those lighthouses and things on a paper last night, but it was the southern trip that did all that. Maybe we, going north, don't do the same things at all. I sha'n't swallow all you say, anyhow, till I know for sure." " Children, stop your quarreling," commanded Bertha Brown, sternly. " Now I've been learning something worth while. / know the saloon deck from the promenade deck, and I can rattle off ' fore ' and ' aft ' and ' port ' and ' starboard ' as if I'd been born on shipboard ! " "Pooh! You wait," teased Tilly. " There'll come a time when you won't think you're born on 246 SIX STAR RANCH shipboard, and you won't know or care which is fore or aft any of you. And it will come soon, too. Those were porpoises playing this morning when Cordelia thought she saw the sea serpent, you know. I heard a man say he thought it meant a storm was coming. And if it does you just wait/' she finished laughingly. " Oh, I'm waiting," retorted Bertha. " I like waiting. Besides, I don't think it's coming, any- how!" But it did come. Off the coast of South Carolina they ran into a heavy storm, and the great ship creaked and groaned as it buffeted wind and wave. In the little parlor of the suite the entire party, banished from wet, slippery decks, made merry to- gether, and declared it was all fun, anyway. But gradually the ranks thinned. First Mrs. Kennedy asked to be excused, and went into the bedroom. Alma Lane went away next. She said she wanted a drink of water but she did not return, and very soon Elsie Martin, looking suspiciously white about the lips, said she guessed she would go and find Alma. She, too, did not return. Tilly went next. Tilly, naturally, had not been her usual self since the accident, in spite of her brave attempts to hide her suffering. She slipped away now without a word; though just before she had made them all laugh by saying a little shakily: SIX STAR RANCH 247 " I declare, I wish Reddy were here ! He'd think he was riding his broncho, sure." Just when Mr. Hartley disappeared, no one seemed to know. One moment he had been singing lustily " Pull for the Shore " ; the next moment he was gone. There was left then only Bertha with Genevieve and Cordelia in the little parlor; and certainly the last two were anything but sorry when Bertha rose a little precipitately to go, too, saying : "I I think, Genevieve, if you don't mind, I'll go and take off my shoes. They sort of hurt me." " Honestly, Cordelia," moaned Genevieve, when they had the room to themselves, " I reckon we're not caring just now, whether we're fore or aft ! " It was not really a serious storm, after all, and not any of the party was seriously ill. They were all on deck again, indeed, smiling and happy, even if a little white-faced, long before the journey was ended. It was during the very last of the " golden hours " that Tilly, her* eyes on Bartholdi's wonder- ful Statue of Liberty just ahead of them, in the New York Bay, choked : " I declare, I'd just like to give that lady our Texas yell. Only think, girls, our Texas trip is almost over!" 248 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER XIX HERMIT JOE THERE was not quite so large a crowd at the Sunbridge station to welcome the Texas travelers as there had been to see them off; but it was fully large enough to give a merry cheer of greeting, as the train pulled into the little station. " They're all here, with their ' sisters and their cousins and their aunts,' " laughed Tilly, stooping to look through the window as she passed down the narrow aisle behind Genevieve. " I should say they were," answered Genevieve a little wistfully. " We haven't got any one, I'm afraid, though. Miss Jane's been ' down in Maine,' as you call it, visiting, and she doesn't come till next week." " Oh, yes, you have," chuckled Tilly, as she caught sight of an eager face in the crowd. "There's Harold Day." " Pooh ! He didn't come to welcome me any more than he did the rest of you," retorted Genevieve severely, as she neared the door. And what a confusion and chatter it all was, when " their sisters and their cousins and their aunts " SIX STAR RANCH 249 to say nothing of their fathers and mothers and brothers all talked and laughed at once, each try- ing to be first to kiss and hug the one returning traveler, before bestowing almost as cordial a wel- come on all the others. At last, however, in little family groups, afoot or in carriages, the crowd began to leave the station, and Genevieve found herself with Mrs. Kennedy in the family carriage with the old coachman sitting sedately up in front. Mr. Hartley had left the party in New York, after seeing them safely aboard their Boston train. " Well, it's all over," sighed Genevieve, happily, " and hasn't it been just lovely with nothing but poor Tilly's arm to regret! " " Yes, it certainly has been a beautiful trip, my dear, and I know every one has enjoyed it very much. And now comes school." Genevieve made a wry face; then, meeting Mrs. Kennedy's reproving eye, she colored. " There, forgive me, Aunt Julia, please. That wasn't nice of me, of course, when you're so good as to let me come another year. But school is so tiresome ! " " Tiresome ! Oh, my dear ! " " Well, it is, Aunt Julia," sighed the girl. " But I thought you liked it now, dear. You took hold of it so bravely at the last." Mrs. Kennedy's eyes were wistful. " Oh, of course I wanted to pass and go on with 250 SIX STAR RANCH the rest of the girls, Aunt Julia. I couldn't help wanting that. But as for really liking it I couldn't like it, you know; just study, study, study all day in hot, poky rooms, when it's so much nicer out of doors ! " Mrs. Kennedy shook her head. Her eyes were troubled. " I'm afraid, my dear, that this trip hasn't helped any. I was fearful that it wouldn't be easy for you to settle down after such a prolonged playday." " Oh, but I shall settle, Aunt Julia, I shall settle," promised Genevieve with a merry smile. " I know I've got to settle but I can't say yet I shall like it," she finished, as the carriage turned in at the broad driveway, and Nancy and Bridget were seen to be waiting in respectful excitement to welcome them. There would be five days to " get used to it " as Genevieve expressed it before school began ; but long before noon of the first of those five days, Genevieve had planned in her mind enough delight- ful things to occupy twice that number of days. Im- mediately after dinner, too, came something quite unexpected in the shape of a call from Cordelia. Cordelia looked worried. " Genevieve, I've come to ask a favor, please. I'm sure I don't know as you'll want to do it, but but I want you to go with me to see Hermit Joe." " To see Hermit Joe! " SIX STAR RANCH " O dear, I knew you'd exclaim out," sighed Cor- delia; "but it's just got to be done. I suppose I ought not to have told you, anyway, but I couldn't bear to go up to that dismal'place alone," she fin- ished, tearfully. " Why, of course not, dear ; and I'm sure you did just right to tell me," soothed Genevieve, in quick response to the tears in Cordelia's eyes. " Now wait while I get my hat and ask Aunt Julia. She'll let me go, T know ; she'd let me go to to London, with you." " Just please say it's an errand an important one," begged Cordelia, nervously, as Genevieve darted into the house. In two minutes the girl had returned, hat in hand. " Now tell me all about it," she commanded, " and don't look so frightened. Hermit Joe isn't cross. He's only solemn and queer. He won't hurt us." " Oh, no, he won't hurt us," sighed the other. " He'll only look more solemn and queer." "Why?" " Because of what I've got to tell him. I I suppose I ought to have written it, but I just couldn't. Besides, I hadn't found out anything, and so I didn't want to write until I was sure I couldn't find anything. Now it's done, and I haven't found out anything. So I've got to tell him." "Tell him what, Cordelia?" demanded Gene- 252 SIX STAR RANCH vieve, a little impatiently. " How do you suppose I can make anything out of that kind of talk? " " O dear! you can't, of course," sighed Cordelia; " and, of course, if I've told you so much I must tell the rest. It's Hermit Joe's son. I can't find him." " His son! I didn't know he had a son." " He has. His name is John. He ran away to Texas twenty years ago." " And you've 'been hunting for him, too besides that Lester Goodwin who turned out to be Reddy? " Cordelia nodded. She did not speak. Genevieve laughed unexpectedly. " Of all the funny things I ever heard of ! Pray, how many more lost people have you been looking for in the little state of Texas ? " Cordelia moved her shoulders uneasily. "I I'd rather not tell that, please, Genevieve," she stammered, with a painful blush. Genevieve stared dumbly. She had not supposed for a moment that Cordelia had been looking for any more lost people. She had asked the question merely as an absurdity. To have it taken now in this literal fashion, and evidently with good reason Genevieve could scarcely believe the evidence of her senses. Another laugh was almost on her lips, but the real distress in Cordelia's face stopped it in time. " You poor dear little thing," she cried sympa- SIX STAR RANCH 253 thetically. " What a shame to bother you so ! I wonder you had any fun at all on the trip." " Oh, but I did, Genevieve ! You don't know how beautiful it all was to me only of course I felt sorry to be such a failure in what folks wanted me to do. You see, Reddy was the only one I found, and I'm very much worried for fear he won't be satisfactory." Genevieve did laugh this time. " Well, if he isn't, I don't see how that can be your fault," she retorted. " Come, now let's forget all this, and just talk Texas instead." " Aunt Mary says I do do that all the time," rejoined Cordelia, with a wistful smile. " Aunt Sophronia is there, too, and she says I do. Still, she likes to hear it, I verily believe, else she wouldn't ask me so many questions," concluded Cordelia, lift- ing her chin a little. " I'd like to take Miss Jane there sometime," observed Genevieve, with a gravity that was a little unnatural. " Oh, mercy ! " exclaimed Cordelia then she stopped short with a hot blush. "I I beg your pardon, I'm sure, Genevieve," she went on stam- meringly. " I ought not to have spoken that way, of course. I was only thinking of Miss Jane and and the cowboys that day they welcomed us." ' Yes, I know," rejoined Genevieve, her lips puckered into a curious little smile. 254 SIX STAR RANCH " I don't believe I'm doing any more talking, anyway, than Tilly is," remarked Cordelia, after a moment's silence. " Of course, Tilly, with her poor arm, would make a lot of questions, anyway; but she is talking a great deal." " I suppose she is," chuckled Genevieve, " and we all know what she'll say." " But she says such absurd things, Genevieve. Why, Charlie Brown you know he calls us the * Happy TVjragons ' now well, he told me that Tilly'd been bragging so terribly about Texas, and all the fine things there were there, that he asked her this morning real soberly you know how Charlie Brown can ask questions, sometimes " " I know," nodded Genevieve. " Well, he asked her, solemn as a judge, * Do these wondrous tamales of yours grow on trees down there ? ' " ' Oh, yes,' Tilly assured him serenely. And when Charlie, of course, declared that couldn't be, she just shrugged her shoulders and answered: * Well, of course, Charlie, I'll own I didn't see tamales growing on trees, but Texas is a very large 'state, and while I didn't, of course, see anywhere near all of it, yet I saw so much, and it was all so different from each other, that I'm sure I shouldn't want to say that I knew they didn't have tamale trees somewhere in Texas ! ' And then she marched off in that stately way of hers, and SIX STAR RANCH 255 M, .0eMMHKfl'WMMMMBaMm E MM M M 3=^ Charlie declared he began to feel as if tamale trees did grow in Texas, and that he ought to go around telling folks so." " What a girl she is ! " laughed Genevieve. " But, Cordelia, she isn't all nonsense. We found that out that dreadful night of the accident." "Indeed we did," agreed Cordelia, loyally; then, with a profound sigh she added : " O dear ! for a minute I'd actually forgotten Hermit Joe." Hermit Joe lived far up the hillside in a little hut surrounded by thick woods. A tiny path led to his door, but it was seldom trodden by the foot of any- body but of Hermit Joe himself Hermit Joe did not encourage visitors, and visitors certainly were not attracted by Hermit Joe's stern reticence on all matters concerning himself and every one else. To-day, as the girls entered the path at the edge of the woods, the sun went behind a passing cloud, and the gloom was even more noticeable than usual. " Mercy ! I'm glad Hermit Joe isn't dangerous and doesn't bite," whispered Genevieve, peering into the woods on either side. " Aunt Julia says he is really a very estimable man Cordelia, if I was a man I just wouldn't be an ' estimable ' one." " Genevieve ! " gasped the shocked Cordelia. Genevieve laughed. " Oh, I'd be it, of course, my dear, only I wouldn't want to be called it. It's the word it always makes me think of side whiskers and stupidity." 256 SIX STAR RANCH " Oh, Genevieve ! " cried Cordelia, again. " Well, as I was saying, Aunt Julia told me that Hermit Joe was really a very nice man. She used to know him well before a great sorrow drove him into the woods to live all by himself." Cordelia nodded sadly. " That was his son that ran away. Aunt Mary told me that long ago. She told us children never to tease him, or worry him, but that we needn't be afraid of him, either. He wouldn't hurt us. I heard once that he was always stern and sober, and that that was why his son ran away. But that it 'most killed him the father when he did go. And now I couldn't find him! Isn't it terrible, Genevieve?" Cordelia's eyes were full of tears. " Yes," sighed Genevieve. " But you aren't to blame, dear." It was very beautiful in the hushed green light of the woods, with now and then a bird-call, or the swift scampering of a squirrel's feet to break the silence. But the girls were not noticing birds or squirrels to-day, and they became more and more silent as they neared the end of their journey. The little cabin was almost in sight when Gene- vieve caught Cordelia's arm convulsively. " Cordelia, sh-h-h ! Isn't that some one talk- ing?" she whispered. Cordelia held her right foot suspended in the air for a brief half minute. SIX STAR RANCH 257 " Yes. That's Hermit Joe's voice. He is talk- ing to some one." " Then there must be somebody there with him." 1 Yes. Genevieve, I I guess I won't tell him to-day," faltered Cordelia. " Let's go back. I'll come again to-morrow." " Nonsense ! Go back, and have you worrying about this thing another twenty-four hours? No, indeed! Come, Cordelia, we must tell him now. I think we ought to do it, really." " All right," sighed the other despairingly. " Come, then." The next minute she gave a sharp cry. "Why, Mr. Edwards!" she breathed. They had come to the turn which brought the cabin into plain sight; and on the stone step with Hermit Joe sat the man Cordelia had last seen driving away from the Six Star Ranch in Texas. Both men rose abruptly. The younger stepped forward. There was a whimsical smile on his lips, 'but his eyes were wonderfully tender. " Yes, ' Mr. Edwards,' Miss Cordelia but Mr. ' Jonathan Edwards Sanborn.' You see, you didn't know all my name, perhaps." To every one's surprise and consternation Cor- delia sat down exactly where she was, and began to cry softly. "Why, Cordelia!" Genevieve was at her friend's side at once. Her- mit Joe looked plainly distressed. Mr. Jonathan 258 SIX STAR RANCH Edwards Sanborn hurried forward in frightened dismay. " Oh, but Miss Cordelia, don't, please don't I beg of you! Don't you understand? I am John Sanborn, Hermit Joe's son; and 'twas all through you that I came home again. " Cordelia only sobbed the harder. Genevieve dropped on her knees at the girl's side, and put her arms about her. " Cordelia, Cordelia, dear don't you see ? it's all come out right. You did find him, after all ! Why are you crying so ? " " T-that's why/' stuttered Cordelia, smiling through tear-wet eyes. " It's because I d-did find him, and I'm so glad, and everything ! " "But, if you're glad, why cry?" began Hermit Joe's son, in puzzled wonder, but Genevieve patted Cordelia's back, and smiled cheerily. "That's all right, Cordelia," she declared. "I know just how you feel. Now you know what was the matter with me when you girls gave me the Texas yell at the station. Just cry all you like ! " As if permission, only, were all she wanted, Cor- delia wiped her eyes and smiled shyly into Mr. Jonathan Edwards Sanborn's face. " It is really you, isn't it? " she murmured. " It certainly is, Miss Cordelia." " And you wouldn't have come if it hadn't been for what I said?" SIX STAR RANCH 259 " No. You set me to thinking, and when I got to thinking I couldn't stop. And, of course, when I couldn't stop thinking I had to come; that's all." "I'm so glad," sighed Cordelia; then, interest- edly : " How long have you been here ? " " Only since day before yesterday. No one in the village knows I'm here, I suspect. We've been talking over our plans father and I. I want him to come West with me." Cordelia got up from the ground. " I'm so glad," she said again, simply. " Gene- vieve, I think we ought to be going." As she turned toward the path, Hermit Joe ad- vanced so that he intercepted her. " Miss Cordelia, I would like to tell how but I can't. Still I wish you could know how happy you've made me." Hermit Joe spoke with evident difficulty. His lips, so long unused to speaking, stumbled over the words; but his eyes glowed as with hidden fires, and his whole face was alight with joy. 260 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER XX THE NEW BOY THE first day of school, for Genevieve, was not a success. Before two hours of it had passed, in- deed, she declared to herself that Miss Hart, her new teacher, was not at all promising, and that she did not like her nearly so well as she had liked Miss Palmer the year before. Making the final arrangements as to her studies and recitations, too, Genevieve privately voted a bore; and more than once her eyes turned longingly to the beautiful Sep- tember sunshine out of doors. At recess time the Happy Hexagons met in the corridor and held what proved to be an indignation meeting. " Well, I for one don't like her a bit," declared Tilly, perking up the bow ends of the black sling that hung about her neck. " Nor I," echoed Genevieve. " Not much like Miss Palmer last year, nor Miss j Jones," said Bertha. " I told you we wouldn't get such a good one this term." " But, girls, I think we ought to try to like her," ventured Cordelia, in a voice that told very plainly how she expected her remark to be received. SIX STAR RANCH 261 " Of course," sniffed Tilly, disdainfully. " Oh, but I'm sure she won't be half bad when we come to know her," cried Alma Lane. " She was so nervous this morning, and I think acted troubled over something/' Tilly tossed her head. " Troubled ! I should think we were the ones that were troubled. Did you ever see such a lot of rules and regulations about what not to do? She's scarcely left a thing we can do." " Oh, yes, she has," groaned Genevieve. " We can sit still and look pleasant, and study, study, study! I reckon I shall have to, all right, too, this term, at the rate my studies and recitation hours are piling up," she finished, as the bell rang for them to go to their seats. All days even the worst of them come to an end sometime; and at last Genevieve was free to go home. Half-way to the Kennedy house a soft whistle of the Happy Hexagons' Club song sounded behind her; and a moment later Harold Day caught up with her. "Well?" he queried. "But it isn't 'well' at all," wailed Genevieve, with a shake of her head. " So I judged from your face." " But have you ever had Miss Hart for a teacher?" "No; she's new this year. We had Miss Hoi- SIX STAR RANCH brook in her place last year, and she was fine; but she got married, you know. She herself recom- mended Miss Hart for the position, I believe." " Did she ? " sighed Genevieve. " What a lugubrious face ! " laughed Harold. " Suppose you tell me what is the matter with Miss Hart, eh?" " I can't. It's just an intangible, indefinable ' don't-like-her ' feeling. She doesn't sit still a minute, and she's awful on rules. Tilly calls her 'Miss Hartless.'" Harold laughed. " Trust Tilly to call her something ! "' he re- joined. " But I don't believe the lady will be half bad when you get used to her." " That's what your cousin Alma says." "Well, I believe she's right," declared Harold. " It sounds to me as if Miss Hart were nervous and afraid." Genevieve opened her eyes. " Afraid ! A teacher afraid! " " Wouldn't you be afraid if you had to follow where you know there had been such favorites as Miss Holbrook and Miss Palmer were ? " " Why, I never thought of it that way," frowned Genevieve. " I didn't suppose teachers ever had er feelings like that." " Well, I suppose teachers are folks, like the rest of us," hazarded the youth, as he stopped a SIX STAR RANCH 263 minute at the foot of the Kennedys' front walk. Genevieve shook her head mischievously. " I don't," she protested. " They always seem to me like things you buy for school, just like you do the books and chalk, and that they come in boxes all graded and sorted primary, grammar, high school, French, German, and all that," she flashed over her shoulder, as she skipped up the walk toward the house. " There ! " sighed Genevieve, bounding up on to the veranda, and dropping her books into a chair. " I'm going for a ride with Tilly, Aunt Julia, please, if you don't mind." " Very well, dear; but don't stay too long. There's your practising, you know." Genevieve scowled, and made an impatient ges- ture neither of which Mrs. Kennedy seemed to notice. " You have your watch, I see," she went on serenely; "so I don't think you'll forget." 'Genevieve bit her lip. She threw a hurried glance into Mrs. Kennedy's face ; but that, too, [Mrs. Kennedy did not appear to notice. " No, Aunt Julia," said Genevieve, a little con- strainedly, as she went to saddle her horse, " I sha'n't forget." When quite by herself around the corner of the house, she drew a long breath. 264 SIX STAR RANCH " Sometimes/' she muttered fiercely behind her teeth, " sometimes I I just wish folks weren't so good to me! Seems to me I just can't waste a whole hour of this tiny little bit of glorious day that is left, practising a stupid old ' one, two - one, two one, two ! " Then, with apparent ir- relevance, she patted her blue-and-gold chatelaine watch remorsefully and it may be noted right here that she came back in ample time for her hour of practising before supper. There was a new boy at school the next morning. This fact in itself did not particularly interest the Happy Hexagons until they learned his name. It was " O. B. J. Holmes." When the initials did not seem quite to satisfy Miss Hart, he hesitated visibly, then said, with a very painful blush, that the " O " might be put down " Oliver." It was plainly on the teacher's tongue to ask about the other letters; but, after a moment's hesitation, she passed over the matter, and turned to something else. As usual the Happy Hexagons found themselves together at recess time, and as was natural, perhaps, the subject of the new boy came up for discus- sion. " I don't believe ' Oliver ' is ever his name," de- clared Tilly, stoutly. " No sane youth in his right mind would blush so beautifully over just ' Oliver.' Besides, he didn't say it was Oliver." " I saw Miss Hart talking to him as I came out SIX STAR RANCH 265 just now," announced Bertha, " and his face was even redder than ever. Hers was getting red, too." " Then there is something," cried Genevieve, ex- citedly, " and it's a mystery. I love mysteries ! ' O. B. J.' what a really funny set of letters! " " Must be ' Oliver Ben Johnson/ " laughed Bertha. "Sounds to me like 'O Be Joyful/" giggled Tilly. "Sh-h! Tilly!" warned Cordelia, in a hor- rified whisper. " He's coming. He'll hear you ! " But Tilly was not to be silenced. Tilly, for some reason, felt recklessly mischievous that morning. " Why, of course his name is ' O Be Joyful/ ' she cried in gay, shrill tones that carried the words straight to the ears of a rather awkward-appearing boy coming toward them. " How could it be any- thing else?" The boy blushed hotly. For a moment it seemed as if he would stop and speak; but the next minute he had turned away his face, and was passing them hurriedly. It was then that the unexpected happened. With a quick little impulsive movement, Genevieve stepped to the new boy's side, and held out a frankly cordial hand. " How do you do, Mr. Oliver Holmes," she be- gan breathlessly, but with hurried determination. " I am Genevieve Hartley, and I'd like to welcome 266 SIX STAR RANCH you to our school. These are my friends : Cordelia Wilson, Alma Lane, Bertha Brown, Elsie Martin, and Tilly Mack. We hope you'll soon get ac- quainted and feel at home here," she finished, her face almost as painful a red as was the boy's. O. B. J. Holmes clutched Genevieve's hand, stammered a confused something in response to the introductions, and flung a terrifiedly uncertain bow in the direction of the wide-eyed girls; then he turned and fled precipitately. Behind him he left, for one brief minute, a dazed silence before Tilly lifted her chin disagreeably and spoke. " Well, dear me ! For so marked a bid for his favor, seems to me our young friend doesn't show proper appreciation to run away like that!" Genevieve colored angrily. " That was no bid for his favor, and you know it, Tilly Mack!" " No? " teased Tilly, hatefully. " Well, I'm sure I should have thought it was if a perfect stranger flung herself in my way like that." "Tilly, Tilly don't!" begged Cordelia, almost tearfully. It was Genevieve's turn to lift a disdainful chin. She eyed Tilly scornfully. " Oh, no, you wouldn't not if some other per- fect stranger had jast called out a particularly hate- ful, horrid joke about something you were not in 1 ' HOW DO YOU DO, MR. OLIVER HOLMES, ' SHE BEGAN " SIX STAR RANCH 267 the least to blame for ! If you hadn't said what you did, I shouldn't have said what I did, Tilly Mack. As it was, I I just couldn't help it; I was so sorry for him ! " " Oh, it was just being sorry, then ! Oh, excuse me; I didn't know," cooed Tilly, smoothly. " You see, it looked so different ! " :( Tilly ! " gasped Cordelia. " Genevieve, don't you mind one bit what she says ! " But Genevieve, without a word, had turned and was walking swiftly away. " Well, Tilly Mack," chorused several indignant voices ; and Elsie Martin added severely : " I've got my opinion of you after all Genevieve has just done for us ! I'm sure, I think it was lovely of her to speak to that boy like that! " Tilly flushed uncomfortably. Her tongue had gone much farther than she had intended it to go. She did not like to think, either, of that Texas trip just then. But the very shame that she felt made her only the more determined not to show it then. " Pooh ! there wasn't a thing I said that any- body need to make such a fuss about," she declared loftily; then, as she spied Harold Day coming toward them, she called in a merry voice : " Seen the new boy, Harold? His name is ' O. B. J. Holmes/ / say his name is ' O Be Joyful,' and the girls are shocked at my disrespect." 268 SIX STAR RANCH " Is that so? " laughed Harold. " Well, I'm not sure Fd like that name myself very well even if 'tis a cheerful one! Where's Genevieve? One doesn't often see one of you without all of you." " Oh, she was here, but she's gone. She was the most shocked of all," answered Tilly, with mock humility. " Probably she's gone to tell him so. You see, she shook hands with him and introduced us all around, and said she'd like to welcome him and that she hoped he'd enjoy it here." " Oh, Tilly! " remonstrated Cordelia. "Why, Cordelia, didn't she?" asked Tilly, in a particularly innocent tone of voice. " Y - yes," admitted Cordelia, reluctantly, " only " The bell rang and the group broke up, with Cordelia's sentence still unfinished. The rest of the day for the Happy Hexagons was not an easy one. Tilly looked rebellious and ashamed. Cordelia looked ready to cry. Gene- vieve kept her eyes on her books and seemed un- aware that there was such a thing in the world as a girls' club, of which she was a prominent mem- ber. Bertha, Elsie, and Alma divided their time between scowling at Tilly and trying to attract Genevieve's attention. It was during the Latin recitation, which came just before closing time at noon, that Cordelia's perturbation culminated in a blunder that sent most of the class into convulsive giggles, and even SIX STAR RANCH 269 brought a twitching smile to Genevieve's tense lips. Cordelia, rising to translate in her turn, hurried blindly through a paragraph until she came to the words " sub jugum." Now Cordelia very well knew what " sub jugum " meant; but her eyes, at the moment, were divided between her book and Genevieve's flushed cheeks, and so saw, apparently, but half of the word " jugum." At all events, the next moment the class were amazed to learn from Cordelia's lips that Caesar sent the army not " under the yoke " as was expected but " under the jug." Cordelia knew, before the titters of the class told her, what she had said; and with hot blushes she made a hasty correction. But to Cordelia, usually so conscientiously accurate and circumspect, the thing was a tragedy, and, as such, would not soon be forgotten by her. She knew, too, that the class would not let her forget it even could she herself do so. If She had doubted this, she did not doubt it longer, after school was dismissed, for she was assailed on all sides by a merry bombardment of gibes and questions as to just what sort of jug it was, anyhow, under which Caesar sent his army. Genevieve, only, had nothing to say. She did not, indeed, even glance toward Cordelia. With averted face she hurried through the corridor and out the street door alone. In the yard a quick step 270 SIX STAR RANCH behind her overtook her, and she found herself looking into the flushed, agitated face of the new boy. O. B. J. Holmes would not, at first sight, be called a good-looking youth. His face was freckled, and his nose was rather large. But his mouth was well- shaped, and his eyes were large and expressive. They looked into Genevieve's now with a gaze that was clear and honest and manly. " Miss Genevieve, may I walk with you a little way, please?" he asked with disarming directness. " I want to speak to you." " Why, of of course," stammered Genevieve. Then she colored painfully: behind her she heard Tilly's laughing voice, followed by Alma's lower one, and Harold's. " I wanted to thank you for what you did this morning," began O. B. J. Holmes, falling into step with her. " Oh, that wasn't wasn't anything," stammered Genevieve, nervously, still acutely conscious of the eyes that she knew were behind her. The boy smiled a little wistfully. " Perhaps not, to you," he answered ; " but if you'd been named ' O Be Joyful ' and had had to suffer for it as I have, you'd think it was some- thing." " You don't mean to say your name is ' O Be Joyful ' ! " gasped Genevieve. SIX STAR RANCH 271 He nodded, his face showing a deeper red. " Yes, that's what I wanted to tell you. I didn't feel square not to have you know it, after you stood up so bravely for ' Oliver.' Of course, if you like, you may tell the rest. I suppose I was foolish to try to keep it to myself, anyway," he sighed moodily. "Tell it! Of course I sha'n't tell it," declared Genevieve, warmly. She had forgotten all about those watching eyes behind her, now. " Thank you," smiled the boy again, a little wist- fully. " Miss Hart knows it, of course. I told her at recess ; and the principal, Mr. Jackson, knows it. He agreed to letting me be called ' Oliver/ and so does Miss Hart. Still, I don't suppose I can keep it, and it will get out. I I supposed it had got out when I heard your friend this morning." " Well, it isn't out, and nobody knows it but me," declared Genevieve, with more warmth than grammar. " That was only some of Tilly Mack's nonsense; and when you know her better, you'll know that nobody pays any attention to what Tilly says." Genevieve stopped abruptly, and bit her lip. She was thinking that not so very long before, she herself had paid attention to something Tilly Mack said. ; ' I don't think mother ever realized just what such a name would be for a fellow to carry through life," said the boy, after a moment's silence. " There were five of us children, and she gave us 272 SIX STAR RANCH all queer names names that expressed something that had just been happening in the family, you un- derstand. For instance, my oldest brother was born in a year when the crops failed, and they called him * Tribulation.' Crops were good, you see, when I came," he added, with a rueful smile. " Why, how how funny and and terrible," breathed Genevieve. " Yes, it was terrible but mother never thought of it that way, I'm sure. I'm glad she can't know now just how hard it's been for me. When I came here, I knew I was a perfect stranger and I determined folks shouldn't know. I'd be ' Oliver B. J. Holmes.' " "And you shall be ' Oliver B. J. Holmes,'" averred Genevieve, lifting her chin. " Oh, of course Tilly will call you the other, and maybe some of the rest will, sometimes ; but don't let that fret you for a moment. Just remember that no one knows for I sha'n't tell it. And now good-by. This is my street," she finished, with a cheery nod. It was not easy for Genevieve to go back to the short session of school that afternoon ; but she went and she tried to appear as if everything was as usual when she met Cordelia and Elsie at the corner. Cordelia and Elsie were only too glad to follow her lead. Not until they met Tilly in the school yard and saw her turn hastily away without speaking did they show how really constrained they felt. SIX STAR RANCH 273 Genevieve, apparently, saw and felt nothing of this but she never looked toward Tilly that after- noon; and when school was dismissed she hurried cheerfully away with only a smiling nod toward Cordelia and Alma, whom she passed in the cor- ridor. At home Genevieve went immediately to her practising somewhat to Mrs. Kennedy's surprise. She practised, too, quite fifteen minutes over her hour still more to Mrs. Kennedy's surprise. There was, also, a certain unsympathetic hardness in the chords and runs that puzzled the lady not a little; but in the face of their obvious accuracy, and of Genevieve's apparent faithfulness, Mrs. Kennedy did not like to find fault. Just how long Genevieve would have practised is doubtful, perhaps, had there not sounded an in- sistently repeated whistle of the Hexagon Club song from the garden. The girl went to the open win- dow then. "Did you whistle, Harold?" she asked, not too graciously. " Did I whistle? " retorted the boy, testily. " Oh, no, I never whistled once but I did four times! See here, I thought your practice-hour was an hour." " It is." " Well, you've been working fifteen minutes over- time already." 274 SIX STAR RANCH "Have I?" u Yes, you have ; and your constitution positively needs a walk. Come, it's your plain duty to your health. Will you go? " Genevieve dimpled into a laugh. " All right," she cried more naturally. " Then I'll come. I'll be out in a jiffy." " Let's go up through the pasture to the woods/' proposed Harold, when Genevieve appeared, swing- ing her hat. " All right," nodded Genevieve, somewhat list- lessly. " Anywhere." In the woods, some time later, Genevieve and Harold dropped themselves down to rest. It was then that Harold cleared his throat a little nerv- ously. :< You have a new boy in school, I hear," he said. Genevieve turned quickly. For a moment she looked almost angry. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. " You've been talking with Tilly, I perceive," she remarked. " Oh, no; Tilly has only been talking with me," retorted Harold, laughing in his turn though a little constrainedly. Genevieve grew suddenly sober. "I don't care; I'm glad I did it," she declared. [< You know what Tilly can be when she wants to SIX STAB RANCH 275 be and she evidently wanted to be, this morning. Just because a boy is new and has got freckles and a queer name, is no reason why he should be made fun of like that." " Of course not ! " Then, still a little constrain- edly, Harold asked : " How do you like him ? I saw you talking with him afterward." Genevieve frowned thoughtfully. " Why, I don't know I hadn't thought," she answered. " But I reckon perhaps I like him. He talked quite a little, and he seemed rather nice, I think just frank and folksy, you know. Yes, I think I like him. I think we'll all like him." " Qh, of course," agreed Harold without enthu- siasm, getting suddenly to his feet. " Well, I sup- pose we must be going." " Yes, of course," sighed Genevieve, glancing down at her little blue-enamel watch ; " but it is nice here ! " The homeward walk was somewhat of a silent one. Harold was unusually quiet, and Genevieve was wondering just how and when peace and happi- ness were to reign once more in the Hexagon Club. She was wondering, too, if ever she could be just the same to Tilly unless Tilly had first something to say to her. As it happened, Genevieve's questions were an- swered, in a way, before she slept; for, after she had gone up to bed that night, there came a ring at 276 SIX STAR RANCH the doorbell, followed, a moment later, by a tap at her door. " It do be a note for you, Miss Genevieve," ex- plained Nancy. "A note forme?" "Yes, Miss; from Miss Tilly, I think. She's down at the door with her brother." Genevieve did not answer. Her eyes were de- vouring the note. " DEAR GENEVIEVE : " Tilly had written. " I'm so ashamed I just can't live till you tell me you for- give me. I have begged Howard to take me down there. I know I never, never can sleep till I've asked your pardon for being so perfectly horrid this morning. Will you ever, ever forgive and love me again? " Your miserable, remorseful " TILLY. " P. S. I think what you did was just the bra- vest, loveliest thing I ever saw a girl do. "T. M. " P. S. again. I'm so late I'm afraid you've gone to bed: but if you haven't, and if you do for- give me, come to your window and wave to me. I shall watch with what Quentina would call soulful, hungry eyes. SIX STAR RANCH 277 " That's all right; thank you, Nancy. There isn't any answer," smiled Genevieve as she closed the door. The next moment she darted across the room, plucked a great pink aster from the vase on the table, hurried to the window and threw up the screen. Below she saw the automobile and the two figures therein. Faintly visible, too, was the upturned face of the girl, containing, presumably, the " hungry, soulful eyes." The next moment, plump into Tilly's lap, fell a huge pink aster. 278 SIX STAR RANCH CHAPTER XXI GENEVIEVE LEARNS SOMETHING NOT IN BOOKS SCHOOL, in an amazingly short time, fell into its customary routine. Genevieve, it is true, did not cease to pine for long, free hours out of doors ; but with as good grace as she could muster she sub- mitted to the inevitable. Miss Hart was still not a favorite in the school, and no one seemed to realize this more keenly than did Miss Hart herself. At all events, as the days passed, she grew thinner and paler looking, and more nervous and worried in her manner. While none of the Happy Hexagons deliberately set her- self to making trouble, certainly none of them tried to cause matters to be any easier for her. The girls themselves had long since forgotten their brief day of unpleasantness regarding O. B. J. Holmes, and were more devoted than ever, after this, their first quarrel. In the Kennedy home, too, matters had settled into their usual routine. Miss Jane had returned, and the days, for Genevieve, were full of study, practice, and the usual number of lessons in cooking and sewing. SIX STAR RANCH 279 As the crisp October days came, every pleasant Saturday afternoon found the Hexagon Club off for a long walk or ride, sometimes by themselves, sometimes with Harold, Charlie, O. B. J. Holmes, or some of the other boys and girls as invited guests. O. B. J. Holmes had long since ceased to be the " new boy." He was not, indeed, exactly a favorite with some of the young people, but he was included frequently in their merrymakings chiefly because Genevieve declared openly that she thought he ought to be. He was not called " Oliver " except in the classroom. Outside he was known usually as " O. B. J." slurred into " Obejay." Sometimes, it is true, Tilly's old " O Be Joyful " was heard, but not often perhaps because the lad appeared not to care if they did call him that, specially if Genevieve were near to join in the good-natured laugh with which he greeted it. Undeniably, this frank friendliness of the most popular girl in school had much to do with the way the others regarded him; though they were at a loss, sometimes, to account for a certain quality in that friendship, which they could not fathom. " It's for all the world as if you'd known each other before," Harold explained it a little ag- grievedly one day to Genevieve, when O. B. J. Holmes had just thrown her one of his merry glances at a sudden revival of Tilly's " O Be Joy- ful " name. " Say, have you known him before ? " 280 SIX STAR RANCH Genevieve laughed but she shook her head. " No; but maybe I do know him now a little better than you do," she answered demurely, think- ing of the name that Harold did not even suspect. School this year, for Genevieve, was meaning two new experiences. One was that for the first time class officers were elected; the other, that a school magazine was started. In both of these she bore a prominent part. In the one she was unan- imously elected president; in the other she was appointed correspondent for her class by the Editor- in-Chief. By each, however, she was quite over- whelmed. "But I don't think I can do them not either of them," she declared to Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Jane Chick when she had brought home the news. " To be Class President you have to be awfully dignified and conduct meetings and know parlia- mentary law, and all that." " I'm not afraid of anything there hurting you," smiled Miss Jane. " In fact, it strikes me that it will do you a great deal of good." " Y-yes, I suppose you would think so," smiled Genevieve, a little dubiously. " And I'm sure it's an honor," Mrs. Kennedy re- minded her. Genevieve flushed. "I am glad they wanted me," she admitted frankly. SIX STAR RANCH 281 " And what is this magazine affair? " asked Miss Jane. ' Yes, and that's another thing," sighed Gene- vieve. " I can't write things. If it were only Quen- tina, now she could do it ! " " But you have written for the Chronicles, my dear," observed Mrs. Kennedy. " Have you given those up?" " Oh, no ; we still keep them, only we have entries once a week now instead of every day. There isn't so much doing here as there was in Texas, you know." " Then you do write for that," said Miss Jane. " Oh, but thafs just for us," argued Genevieve. " I don't mind that. But this has got to be printed, Miss Jane printed right out for everybody to read ! If it were only Quentina, now she'd glory in it. And oh, Miss Jane, how I wish you could see Quentina," broke off Genevieve, suddenly. " Dear me ! wouldn't she just hit on your name, though ! She'd be rhyming it in no time, and have ' Miss Jane at the window-pane,' before you could turn around ! " " Quite an inducement for me to know her, I'm sure," observed Miss Jane, dryly. Genevieve laughed, but she sighed again, too. " Well, anyhow, she would do it lovely this correspondence business; but I can't, I'm sure." " What are you supposed to do ? " 282 SIX STAR RANCH " Why, just hand in things anything that's of interest in my class; but I don't know what to say." " Perhaps the others can help you," suggested Aunt Julia. Genevieve gave a sudden laugh. " They'd like to some of them. Tilly's tried already. She gave me two items this noon, all written down. One was that O. B. J. had a new freckle on the left side of his nose, and the other that Bertha hadn't said ' I told you so ' to-day." " Genevieve ! " protested the shocked Miss Jane. " You wouldn't " She stopped helplessly. " Oh, no, Miss Jane, I wouldn't," laughed Gene- vieve, merrily, as she rose from the dinner-table. Perhaps it was her duties as president, and her new task as correspondent, or perhaps it was just the allurement of the beautiful out-of-doors that made it so hard for Genevieve to spend time on her lessons that autumn. Perhaps, too, her lack of enthusiasm for Miss Hart had something to do with it. Whatever it was, to concentrate her atten- tion on Latin verbs and French nouns grew harder and harder as the days passed, until at last in the frenzied rush of a study-hour one day she did what she had never done before: wrote the meaning of some of the words under the Latin version in her book. It was, apparently, a great success. Her work in SIX STAR RANCH 283 class was so unusually good that Miss Hart's tired eyes brightened, and 'her lips spoke a word of high praise praise that sent to Genevieve's cheek a flush that Genevieve herself tried to think was all/ gratification. But the next day she did not write any words in the book. The out-of-doors, however, was just as alluring, and the outside duties were just as pressing; so there was just as little time as ever for the Latin verbs. They suffered, too, in consequence. So, also, did Genevieve; for this time, Miss Hart, stung into irritation by this appar- ently unnecessary falling back into carelessness, said a few particularly sharp words that sent Gene- vieve out of the class with very red cheeks and very angry eyes. " I just hate Miss Hart and school, and and everything," stormed Genevieve hotly, five minutes later, as she met Cordelia and Tilly in the corridor after school was dismissed. " Oh, Genevieve," remonstrated Cordelia, faintly. " Well, I do. I didn't have time to get that les- son but a lot Miss Hart cared for that ! " " Why don't you use a pony ? " twittered Tilly, cheerfully. "A pony ? " Genevieve's eyes were puzzled. Tilly laughed. " Oh, it isn't one of your bronchos," she giggled, "and it's easier to ride than they are! It's just a nice little book that you buy a Latin translation, 284 SIX STAR RANCH you know, all done by somebody else and no bother to you." " But is that quite fair ? " frowned Gene- vieve. " Hm-m ; well, I presume Miss Hartless wouldn't call it good form," she shrugged. " Why, Tilly Mack ! of course it isn't fair, and you know it," cried Cordelia. " It's worse than cribbing." (l What's cribbing?" demanded Genevieve. " It's the only way out when you haven't got your lesson," answered Tilly, promptly. " It's writing the translation under the words in the book," explained Elsie Martin, who, coming tip at the moment, had heard Genevieve's ques- tion. " It's just plain cheating and it's horrid," de- clared Cordelia, with emphasis. Genevieve's face turned a sudden, painful red, for some unapparent reason. " Y-yes, it must be," she murmured faintly, as she turned to go. On the walk home that noon, Harold, as was fre- quently the case, overtook her. " Well, what part of the world would you like changed to-day? " he asked, with a smiling glance at her frowning face. " Chiefly, I reckon I'd like no school," sighed Genevieve; "but if I can't have that, I'd like an- SIX STAR RANCH 285 other box of teachers opened so we could have a new one." " What's the trouble now? " " Oh, I reckon the trouble is with me," admitted Genevieve, ruefully. " Anyhow, Miss Jane would say it was. I flunked in Caesar but that's no rea- son why Miss Hart should have been so disagree- able ! But then, I suppose she has to be. She came out of that kind of a box, you know." Harold laughed, though a little gravely. " You still think they come all boxed, sorted, and labeled, do you? " he said. " And that they aren't 4 just folks 'at all?" " Yes, I still think so. They never seem a bit like * folks ' to me. It's their business to sit up there stiff and solemn and stern, and see that you behave and learn your lessons. I never saw one that I liked, except Miss Palmer and Miss Jones but then, they came out of a jolly box, any- how." " Lucky ladies!" Genevieve laughed rebelliously. "Oh, I know I'm horrid," she admitted; "but well, I went off for a ride with Tilly yesterday after school, instead of paying attention to his Im- perial Highness, Caesar; and that's what was the trouble. But, Harold, it was so perfectly glorious out I had to I just had to! I tell you, every bit of me was tingling to go ! Now what do you sup- 286 SIX STAR RANCH pose Miss Hart knows of a feeling like that? She simply couldn't understand it." " But Miss Hart doesn't look very old to me." Genevieve stopped short, and turned half around. " Old! Why, she's a teacher, Harold! " Harold chuckled, as they started forward again. " I should like to see some teachers' faces if they could hear you say ' teacher ' in that tone of voice, young lady ! " " Pooh ! I reckon it would take considerable to make me think of any teacher as young/' retorted Genevieve, with emphasis. " All right ; but aren't you coming out, later, for a walk or or something ? " asked Harold, a little anxiously, as they reached the Kennedy drive- way. She shook her head. " No, little boy," she answered, with mock cheer- fulness. " I'm going to practise, then I'm going to study my algebra, then I'm going to study my Latin, then I'm going to study my French, then I'm going to study my English history, then "