ther men could take charge of things for you. Why, you
haven't taken a holiday from this place in _years_, and when you went
away last time I suppose it was business, for you never said where you
went nor what happened to you while you were away."

Jim's face turned so red that Jack was afraid Jean's idle speech had
hurt his feelings, for he probably did not like the idea that they
thought anyone as capable of running their ranch for them as he was. She
slipped away from her place at the table and put her arm over Jim's
shoulder as simply as though she were six instead of sixteen. Jim had
always been a kind of big brother to the ranch girls. "Dear old Jim,"
Jack whispered affectionately, "don't be offended. Of course, Jean does
not mean that anybody can really manage the ranch except you, but she
does think, and indeed we all do--Cousin Ruth most of all, though she
hasn't said anything yet--that you could come away with us for a while,
even if you just take the trip with us to Yellowstone Park and then
return to the ranch as you think best. O, Jim!" Jack's words tripped
over each other in her eagerness, "you know you would love our caravan
excursion better than anything in the world! It was just because you
knew how much you would adore it yourself that you agreed so readily to
our scheme when we proposed it to you. Don't you remember how we used to
plot and plan just such a journey years and years ago, when Jean and
Frieda and I were little girls? You used to tell us stories about your
long ride all alone across the great desert when you had no one but your
horse for company, no money, no friends, and no place to go until you
found us." Jack paused for an instant.

Jim Colter was looking out the window, but his eyes were not on the
landscape before him.

"Don't you recall, Jim, how you said that even then you learned to love
the romance of the silent places, even the great loneliness that made
you feel as though the world were created just for you?" Jack went on
pleadingly. "And you said that some day you would take us for a trip
across the prairies, and father promised that we might go when we grew
up. Now everything is getting so civilized out west, do let us start on
our pilgrimage while there is some of the wilderness left." Jack's next
words to her friend were spoken in such a low tone that no one else
could guess what she was saying: "I think father would like you to keep
the promise to us, if you could, Jim, a