ow and Frieda in blue. Ruth never dressed in anything except white
in the evenings. Jim went off to inquire for his mail, asking Ruth to
wait for him. He was beginning to feel anxious to hear how things were
going on at the ranch in his absence.

Peter Drummond stood a short distance off watching the little group. In
coming west, he had made up his mind to have nothing to do with the
people he ran across in the course of his travels. He saw too much of
society in New York. Wealthy, of an old Knickerbocker family, with a
home on the south side of Washington Square, life had given him
everything he desired until three short months before. Then, when he was
forty years old, for the first time in his life he had fallen in love,
and the woman he cared for refused to marry him for what seemed to
Peter a perfectly absurd reason. Therefore Mr. Drummond had determined
forever to forswear the company of women. He was wondering if girls need
be included in his decision, when Frieda solved the problem for him.
Slipping away from the others she crossed the piazza. Peter suddenly
discovered a pair of serious blue eyes gazing straight into his.

"If you want that stone back that you gave me this afternoon you may
have it," she said. "You see I did cry a little bit when I fell, so
perhaps it isn't exactly fair of me to keep it."

Mr. Drummond's face was quite as serious as Frieda's.

"I should hardly like to be called an 'Injun giver', would you?" he
asked. "I don't know how girls feel about it, but when I was a boy if
another fellow tried to get back a thing he had given away he was
thought to be a pretty poor kind of person."

"Girls feel the same way," Frieda felt compelled to answer honestly.

"Then, for my sake, won't you please keep it?--and shaking hands makes
it a bargain," Peter returned, extending his hand to clasp Frieda's.
With her fingers still in his, he joined Ruth and the other girls, who
had been trying not to laugh at the little scene.

Few eastern people, who have had no experience of life in the West,
realize how much more unconventional and informal it is. Strangers
meeting on a train talk as freely during the journey as though they had
been formally introduced; friendliness is in the very atmosphere.

So, though Mr. Drummond was surprised at his own behavior, the ranch
girls accepted his approach quite simply. First, he inquired of Ruth if
Freida had really been hurt in her accident of the afternoon; ten
m