hing at once. Away to the right they could catch a faint glimpse
of one of the long arms of Yellowstone Lake, and they meant to reach a
hotel on its northern banks by twilight.

For the past ten days the caravan party had been moving almost steadily
onward. Twice only had they stopped at small towns for mail, to buy
fresh provisions and to get rid of some of the stains of travel.
However, the entire party looked like a troupe of Spanish gypsies, some
of them fair-haired and blue-eyed as the old Castilians, others dark as
the Moors, but all with their complexions tanned to varying shades of
brown from their weeks in the open air.

"Nature's Wonderland!" Jack spouted rapturously in the language of a
guidebook. "Really, Ruth, the Park is even more beautiful than we
dreamed, isn't it?"

But Jack ceased talking abruptly and Jim reined in his horses on a
stretch of level road, while Olive and Jean slid gently down from their
ponies' backs. The noise of their approach had frightened a band of
almost a hundred antelopes, who were browsing in a near-by forest, and
now they started off in a long, galloping run single file through the
trees to a fertile green valley below.

When the deer were out of sight, Frieda flung a dimpled brown arm about
Jim's neck. She wore a yellow straw bonnet with a blue ribbon on it,
tied under her chin. Ruth had purchased the bonnet in one of the towns
where they spent the night, for each member of the expedition was weary
of crawling down from the wagon to pick up Frieda's lost hat. "Do let's
rest here a few minutes, Jim," Frieda urged. "The horses have stopped,
anyhow, and my legs are so tired dangling from the seat."

Ruth had let go her hold on the children for a few minutes, and without
waiting for Jim's consent, by some sort of silent signal they both
slipped over the wagon wheels and danced away. For hours they had been
passing by every variety of beautiful wild flower, but this minute
Frieda and Carlos discovered an isolated hill crowned with jagged rocks
and covered with bitter-root, whose delicate blossoms made the ground
look like a carpet studded with small pink stars, leading to a giant's
castle in the air.

It was not yet time for luncheon, but the caravaners were always hungry,
and Ruth, Jean and Olive dragged a basket of sandwiches out of the
wagon, while Jim Colter and Ralph Merrit led the horses away to search
for water.

"Better look after the children, Jack," Ruth suggested