ng, Miss Drew, wandering around at this hour of the
night with the girls? I am surprised at you," Jim said harshly. "There
is no telling what danger you may get into." Jim's voice was so hot with
anger and impatience that his audience was silent from sheer amazement.
It was impossible to believe that he was speaking to Ruth in such a
fashion, when always before he had treated her as a queen who could do
no wrong.

Ruth was glad of the darkness, for her cheeks were flushing and her
heart beat unevenly. For a moment the tears gathered in her eyes, but
they were blinked back indignantly. Why should she care because the
overseer of the ranch was rude to her? She had always believed that Jim
Colter was not a gentleman and now felt sure of it. But why did not
this conviction make her able to answer Jim as he deserved, and why
should she feel so unhappy? Ruth knew in her heart of hearts that she
was not being honest with herself. In her six months in the West she and
Jim had become good friends. There were other standards of life than
those of her school teaching days in Vermont. Pretend as she would, a
man could be a gentleman and yet wear strange clothes and use queer
English. But that Jim could fail in any other particular Ruth had not
believed possible until now.

Jean and Jack were as bewildered as their chaperon. For some time they
had suspected that Jim was more interested in Ruth than he would let
them know. Certainly the poor fellow was doing his best to improve his
English, for Jean had dived into his coat pocket one day in search of
the mail and had brought forth instead a discarded English grammar which
Jim had been studying surreptitiously.

"Why Jim, how silly you are!" Jack exclaimed at last to relieve the
painful silence. "Why do you mind our taking a walk to-night? You know
we often do, and we haven't been far. There is nothing that could
happen to us."

Frieda slipped her soft little hand inside Jim's big, strong one, and he
strode on ahead with her and Olive. "Don't you ever be too sure of not
getting into mischief, Jack Ralston," he called back.

"We only went to the rancho to look for you, Jim," Jack replied lightly.
"I wanted to ask you why you sent those gypsies away from the ranch so
soon this afternoon. I didn't care about the people and I hated the man,
but the poor horses were so tired I thought you would let them stay all
night so the horses could rest."

"Miss Ralston, am I running this ranc