ate.

"One more?" urged Ruth, offering Richard the nearly empty box which had
contained a good supply.

"Thank you--no; I've had seven," he refused, laughing. "Nothing ever
tasted quite so good. And I'm an interloper."

"Here's to the interloper!" Ruth raised her glass and drank the last of
her ginger ale. "We always provide for one. Usually it's a small boy."

"More often a pair of them. And always there are Bess, Colonel, and
Sheik." Roberta rose to her feet, the last three sandwiches in hand, and
walked away to the horses tied to the fence-rail.

Richard's eyes followed her. In the austere lines of her riding-habit he
could see more clearly than he had yet done what a superb young image of
health and energy she was.

"Rob adores horses," Ruth remarked, looking after her sister also. "You
ought to see her ride cross-country. My Bess can't jump, but her Colonel
can. I don't believe there's anything in sight Rob and Colonel couldn't
jump. But I can never get used to seeing her; I have to shut my eyes
when Colonel rises, and I don't open them till I hear him land. But he's
never fallen with her, and she says he never will."

"He won't."

"Why not? Any horse might, you know, if he slipped on wet ground or
something."

"He never will with her on his back. He's more likely to jump so high
he'll never come down."

Ruth laughed. "Look at Colonel rub his nose against her, now he's had
the sandwich. Don't you wish you had a picture of them?"

"Indeed I do!" The tone was fervent. Then a thought struck him and he
jumped to his feet. "By all luck, I believe there's a little camera in
the car. If there is we'll have it."

He ran to the fence, took a flying leap over, and fell to searching. In
a moment he produced something which he waved at Ruth. She and Ted went
to meet him as he returned. Roberta, busy with the horses, had not seen.

"There are only two exposures left on the film, but they'll do, if
she'll be good. Will she mind if I snap her, or must I ask her
permission?"

"I think you'd better ask it," counselled Ruth doubtfully. "If it were
one of us she wouldn't mind--"

"I see." He set the little instrument with a skilled touch and rapidly,
then walked toward Roberta and the horses. He aimed it with care, then
he called: "You won't mind if I take a picture of the horses, will you?"

Roberta turned quickly, her hand on Colonel's snuggling nose. "Not at
all," she answered, and took a quick step to one side