ow, Ruth thought she caught the sound of the girls'
voices and dipping into her wrapper, threw up her window blind. The sun
flooded her room with a curious radiance. Ruth felt she had never known
what real sunlight was before. It certainly cleared away the mists from
her heart and brain.

Ruth gazed around her room. It was a joy to her in its wide sunlit
emptiness. The girls had hung white muslin curtains at the windows, the
little pinewood table, chair and bureau were painted white and the bed
was white iron. A little fire burned in the low grate, for Aunt Ellen
had stolen in and laid it, without wakening their guest. There was no
color in the room except the soft brown stain on the walls and floor,
and one bright, red and black Indian blanket.

Ruth understood that the girls had made the place lovely for her. She
began to feel that perhaps they did want her with them after all.
Unconsciously she yielded to the cheerful spirit of Rainbow Lodge and
hurrying into her clothes, found Aunt Ellen ready with her toast and
coffee.

Aunt Ellen explained that the ranch girls had disappeared somewhere
about the ranch. They had waited for their visitor, but when it seemed
that she was going to sleep all day, they vanished.

"You mustn't mind, Miss," Aunt Ellen murmured apologetically, "but they
can't somehow stay indoors, so long as the good weather holds."

Cousin Ruth went shyly out on the ranch-house veranda. She was thinking
regretfully of what a bad impression she had made on her cousins the
night before, because she, too, had planned a very different kind of
meeting. No recollection remained of any one of the girls, except Jack,
whom she would always remember as the young Centaur she saw racing
across the plains.

Ruth strolled slowly down the path through the cottonwood trees. She was
beginning to feel lonely, and hoped one of the girls would turn up soon.
Above her head the yellow leaves rustled softly and the brown landscape
no longer looked uninteresting. It was all new and strange, she thought,
but some day she might learn to care for it.

If Miss Drew had not been so deep in her reflections, she would not have
been so terrified a moment later. For suddenly in her way there loomed a
big shaggy animal and a pair of huge paws clung to her shoulders.

Ruth screamed.

"Down! Shep, down!" cried a merry voice. "I am so sorry, Cousin Ruth.
Shep is our watchdog. He never realizes that visitors don't understand
his fr