boy so little and weak and defiant, that it was like a great
eagle pouncing down on an impudent sparrow. Jim swooped Carlos up in his
arms, but instead of devouring him, put the lad down in a chair by the
breakfast table, poured out a glass of milk for him and made him drink
it, for he saw what no one else had, that the boy was almost dying of
hunger.

"Leave us to ourselves, please," Jim demanded, smiling at Aunt Ellen
apologetically. "I want to see after this boy myself for a few minutes.
Who knows but we may need just such a little scout in our trip across
the prairies."

Ruth smiled at Jim without a trace of the old-maid disapproval of him
which she once felt, and Olive gave a sigh of relief, for she had been
worrying all through breakfast about what they could do with Carlos when
they went on their wonderful caravan trip. It had seemed so unkind to
desert him after his long and faithful quest of her.

A quarter of an hour later Jim came out in the yard, and the Indian lad
went to the kitchen to do as he was bid. Whatever Jim had told him
served to keep him proudly obedient so long as he remained at the ranch
house.

In front of the Lodge, Jean, Olive, Frieda and Ruth were still talking
of their journey, while Frank and Jack had wandered off somewhere
together. Jean was flitting about in the sunlight like a brown sparrow,
twittering and singing and hopping from very joy at being alive. She
suddenly seized Jim's hand and forced Ruth to take hold of his other
one, then when Olive and Frieda joined the circle, she made them whirl
around until they were completely out of breath. "I declare, I never was
so happy in my life," Jean panted, when she finally released her
victims. "I believe every good thing in the world comes true if you only
want it hard enough. But don't you wish we were traveling across the
plains right now? It is such a wonderful, wonderful day!"

Truly it might have been a spring morning in the Garden of Eden. The
pale green leaves of the tall cottonwood trees were shimmering and
quivering with each faintest breeze; the birds were rustling softly in
their branches, and, beyond the trees, the alfalfa fields were now a
delicate lavender and rose.

Jean pointed through an opening in the trees, where the landscape
stretched almost unbroken to the line of hills on the western horizon
and made a little curtsy to Ruth.

"'Oh, what's the way to Arcady
Where all the leaves are merry?'"

"Tell