childhood.

As I came running toward the parade-ground Beverly Clarenden called out:

"Come here, Gail! Shut your little mouth and open your big ears, and
I'll tell you something. Maybe I'd better not tell you all at once,
though. It might make you dizzy," he added, teasingly.

"And maybe you better had," Mat Nivers said, calmly.

"Maybe you'd better tell him yourself, if you feel that way," Beverly
retorted.

"I guess I'll do that," Mat began, with a twinkle in her big gray eyes;
but my cousin interrupted her.

Beverly loved to tease Mat through me, but he never got far, for I
relied on her to curb him; and she was not one to be ruffled by trifles.
Mat was an orphan and, like ourselves, a ward of Esmond Clarenden, but
there were no ties of kinship between us. She was three years older than
Beverly, and although she was no taller than he, she seemed like a woman
to me, a keen-witted, good-natured child-woman, neat, cleanly, and
contented. I wonder if many women get more out of life in these days of
luxurious comforts than she found in the days of frontier hardships.

"Well, it's this way, Gail. Mat doesn't know the straight of it,"
Beverly began, dramatically. "There's going to be a war, or something,
in Mexico, or somewhere, and a lot of soldiers are coming here to drill,
and drill, and drill. And then--"

The boy paused for effect.

"And then, and then, _and_ then--or some time," Mat Nivers mimicked,
jumping into the pause. "Why, they'll go to Mexico, or somewhere. And
what Bev is really trying to tell hasn't anything to do with it--not
directly, anyhow," she added, wisely. "The only new thing is that Uncle
Esmond is going to Santa Fe right away. You know he has bought goods of
the Santa Fe traders since we couldn't remember. And now he's going down
there himself, and he's going to take you boys with him. That's what
Bev is trying to get out, or keep back."

"Whoopee-diddle-dee!" Beverly shouted, throwing himself backward and
kicking up his heels.

I jumped up and capered about in glee at the thought of such a journey.
But my heart-throb of childish delight was checked, mid-beat.

"Won't Mat go, too?" I asked, with a sudden pain at my throat. Mat
Nivers was a part of life to me.

The smile fell away from the girl's lips. Her big, sunshiny gray eyes
and her laughing good nature always made her beautiful to Beverly and
me.

"I don't want to go and leave Mat," I insisted.

"Oh, I do," Beverly declared