ake you till lunch time at least to get through with
it."

"Speak for yourself," retorted Betty, too happy to mind being teased.
"Guess what, girls!" she added, unable to keep the news to herself for
another minute, "Allen arrives via the Western Limited at four-thirty or
thereabouts to-morrow afternoon."

"Hooray!" cried the girls, and momentarily forgot their own letters in
very real delight. Allen Washburn was a favorite with all of them.

"Will you let us all go to meet him, Betty dear?" asked Grace, with a
twinkling smile. "Or does he insist on seeing you alone?"

"Don't be silly," retorted Betty good-naturedly. "I know he would take
it as a personal slight if you weren't all there to welcome him."

"Well, I don't know," Mollie commented ruefully. "Something tells me he
would manage to live through it even if we weren't there. But go on,
Betty," she added. "Tell us what else he has to say."

"That's pretty nearly all," said Betty truthfully. "He said he would
save all the news until he saw me--us. One thing he did say," she
added, dimpling: "The boys are simply wild with jealousy. They say it is
all a deep dark scheme on Allen's part to get out here with us."

"Us!" repeated Grace, with a giggle. "Much he cares about the rest of
us."

Be that as it may, they certainly all turned out that following
afternoon to meet the Western Limited which was bearing Allen swiftly
toward them.

There was the usual gathering of picturesquely garbed miners and
cow-punchers on the platform, and for most of these the girls had a
smile and a nod.

"Seems funny to think how strange everything looked to us when we first
came," remarked Grace, as they waited for the train. "Now we feel as
much at home as if we had lived here all our lives."

"The people are all so nice and friendly, too," said Amy. "It's
wonderful how soon you come to know them."

"It is a nice atmosphere," Betty agreed. "At home in the East we want to
know pretty much all there is to know about people we make our friends.
But out here they take you for granted. Nobody seems to care where you
came from or who your relatives are----"

"Huh," grunted Mollie. "I guess in a good many cases it wouldn't do to
be too curious," she said cynically. "If you believe the stories you
read and the movies you see everybody who has committed a crime anywhere
from petty larceny to murder skips out West to escape just punishment."

"Then at this moment," drawled Grace, gl