d did wish it to look pretty again, so she gave
in graciously.

"All right, Jean, if you will ride horseback with me all day to-morrow
and make Olive and Jack ride in the wagon, I guess I will let you," she
conceded.

Jean had the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up past her dimpled elbows
and the collar of her white blouse tucked in at the neck. She felt as
much at home by the wayside pool as she did in Rainbow Lodge. Frieda was
wrapped in a white towel like a shawl. Only once, toward the end of the
washing operation, did she utter a squeal of indignation, and Ruth and
Olive immediately ran to her rescue.

"Jean's caught a minnow in my hair," she insisted wrathfully, with her
face very red. "I saw the tiniest one sailing down the brook by me, and
then all at once it disappeared, and I am sure I can feel it wriggling
on my neck."

Ruth made a careful examination of the clean yellow hair before Frieda
would be reconciled. Then she led the small girl away to a sunshiny
spot, spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry, until she looked
like the original "Miss Goldilocks" in the old fairy tale. Frieda was
given a piece of scalloping, which she had been working on for weeks, to
keep her quiet.

"Jean," Ruth called a minute later, "do you mind staying here with
Frieda for a little while? Olive and I have to go foraging for some
chips before we can make the fire burn for luncheon, naughty Carlos
having deserted us. Do you think you can make yourself lovely and keep
an eye on things at the same time?"

Jean nodded peacefully from her throne of rocks, though a minute before
she had been hot from her exertions and angry at Frieda's ingratitude.
"Sure, as my name is Jean Bruce, I can," she answered cheerfully,
letting down the masses of her dark-brown hair. She made such a pretty
picture that Ruth watched her smilingly for a few minutes. She thought
she loved all the girls alike now, but Jack and Olive were her friends
and Jean and Frieda her children. She guessed her business of playing
chaperon to the ranch girls would not be an easy one, if ever Jean got
away from their western life into the gay society world of which she
dreamed and talked.

But no frivolous ideas of a society existence now engaged Miss Bruce's
attention, and she had no more idea of being disturbed than if she had
been the original lady in the Garden of Eden. Jean was indeed the
nut-brown maid of whom old-fashioned poets loved to write. Her hair had