still on
Jim's.

"We don't know, Jack," Jim replied, like a soldier, "but I believe you
will. The doctors we have seen out here don't seem able to say just what
is the matter with you. They tell us to give you a chance to get
stronger this summer and then take you east."

Jack closed her eyes for a few moments and lay perfectly still. Then she
opened them and smiled a queer, little, twisted smile. "We haven't got
the money to take me east, pard," she murmured, "and don't you sell any
part of our ranch. I'll fool the doctors yet, but if I've got to
be--ill," Jack ended, "why I'd rather be sick at home than any place in
the world."

Jim cleared his throat and moved his chair so his companion could not
look directly at him.

"Pardner," Jack said a few minutes afterwards, "I don't want to be
impatient, but I do want to go home _now_. Couldn't you write and ask
Mr. Harmon to give up the ranch a little sooner than October? They can't
want to be at Rainbow Lodge as much as I do." She looked at the dark
hill that rose straight up in front of their tiny verandah and dreamed
of the beautiful, spacious piazza in front of her home, with the grove
of cottonwood trees ahead and on every side the stretch of the broad,
wind-swept prairies, and sighed.

Jim felt such a rush of anger that his collar choked him. "I have
written Mr. Harmon to ask him to let us come back; I knew you was
homesick, boss," he returned slowly. "But Mr. Harmon says he can't give
up the Lodge until his contract is over, says it's doing his daughter
such a lot of good and she hasn't yet recovered from her nervous shock.
Fine behavior from a man, when you saved his child's life!"

In half an hour, Ruth, Mr. Drummond, the girls and Carlos came trooping
back from an effort to buy out the village. Peter was going to say
good-by to Jack, and, as Ruth saw she was even paler than usual, she
persuaded Jean to take the two children indoors. They had brought Jack
everything they could find in the town, and Olive had a large package
addressed to her friend in Elizabeth Harmon's writing, which she found
at the post office. Listlessly Jack allowed Olive to cut the string and
unwrap the pasteboard from about the flat envelope. Then Olive held up
before them all a new and beautiful photograph of the Rainbow
Lodge--Aunt Ellen and Uncle Zack were standing in the yard, old Shep was
resting on the steps of the porch and there was a suggestion of Jean's
and Frieda's violet be