expected two. Who can the other one
be?" added Polly.

"Maybe they are not our company, at all, but some ranchers riding that
way," suggested Eleanor, fearfully.

"Ranchers seldom ride that trail, and never on Sundays. Now look!" said
Polly.

The three horses had stopped and soon, one rider was seen going along
the trail to Oak Creek, while the other two turned in at the gulch trail
and disappeared under the giant over-hanging rocks.

"Hurrah!" shouted Eleanor, waving her sun-hat wildly about her head.

"I reckon our company is coming, after all," said Polly, smiling with
satisfaction.

"I'll run back and tell your mother, Polly, as it will be at least half
an hour before they can reach the house," said Anne, happy also that
Barbara was to be silently contradicted.

"Don't dally around here, girls, when your company joins you," advised
Anne, turning around, after she had started down the cliff-side.

"I reckon we'd better go back with you--mother can be the first to say
how-dy to them," ventured Polly, looking like a stage-struck amateur at
her first appearance before the public.

"See here, Polly Brewster! Don't you go back on _me_! I wouldn't have
Bob watching us meet those boys and then laughing at us afterwards, for
anything in the world! We'll stay right _here_ and get acquainted before
we go to the house to be teased and made to feel uncomfortable,"
declared Eleanor, who knew her sister only too well.

"I guess Eleanor's right, Polly; it struck me that that nice young boy
was rather shy with strangers, so you will be doing him a great favor if
you get acquainted here and then bring him to the house to meet the
rest of us," admitted Anne, then she ran down the steep sides of the
rocks.

Now and then the waiting girls had glimpses of the two riders as they
rode along the winding trail past the Cliffs. And Jim Latimer also
caught a glimpse of the girls as he happened to pause, to point out the
Rainbow rocks to his friend. Instantly he pulled off his wide sombrero
and waved it gayly at his young hostesses. Then both boys spurred their
horses eagerly onward.

Eleanor and Jim felt perfectly at ease as they met and shook hands, but
it was evident that Polly and Kenneth Evans were not accustomed to
social ways or behavior, for both acted rather awkward at this meeting.
However, Eleanor generally fitted into any breach, and now she
unconsciously steered the would-be friendly craft of the four past the
reefs