Ann----"

"And giving her a name like that, too!" broke in Mercy. "How dared
you?"

"Why--why----" stammered Mr. Hicks. "It was my grandmother's
name--and she was as spry a woman as ever I see."

"Your grandmother's name!" gasped Mercy. "Then, what right had you to
give it to your niece? And when she way a helpless baby, too! Wasn't
she good enough to have a name of her own--and one a little more modern?"

"Miss, you stump me--you sure do!" declared Mr. Hicks, with a sigh.
"I never thought a gal cared so much for them sort o' things. They're
surprisin' different from boys; ain't they?"

"Hope you haven't found it out too late, Mister Wild and Woolly,"
said Mercy, biting her speech off in her sharp way. "You had better
take a fashion magazine and buy Nita--or whatever she wants to call
herself--clothes and hats like other girls wear. Maybe you'll be able to
keep her on a ranch, then."

"Wal, Miss! I'm bound to believe you've got the rights of it. I ain't
never had much knowledge of women-folks, and that's a fact----"

He was interrupted by the maid coming to the door. "There's a boy here,
Miss Kate," she said, "who is asking for the gentleman."

"Asking for the gentleman?" repeated Miss Kate.

"Yes, ma'am. The gentleman who has just came. The gentleman from the
West."

"Axing for _me?_" cried the ranchman, getting up quickly.

"It must be for you, sir," said Aunt Kate. "Let the boy come in,
Sally."

In a minute a shuffling, tow-headed, bare-footed lad of ten years or so
entered bashfully. He was a son of one of the fishermen living along the
Sokennet shore.

"You wanter see me, son?" demanded the Westerner. "Bill Hicks, of
Bullhide?"

"Dunno wot yer name is, Mister," said the boy. "But air you lookin'
for a gal that was brought ashore from the wreck of that lumber
schooner?"

"That's me!" cried Mr. Hicks.

"Then I got suthin' for ye," said the boy, and thrust a soiled
envelope toward him. "Jack Crab give it to me last night. He said I
was to come over this morning an' wait for you to come. Phin says
you had come, w'en I got here. That's all."

"Hold on!" cried Tom Cameron, as the boy started to go out, and Mr.
Hicks ripped open the envelope. "Say, where is this Crab man?"

"Dunno."

"Where did he go after giving you the note?"

"Dunno."

Just then Mr. Hicks uttered an exclamation that drew all attention to
him and the fisherman's boy slipped out.

"Great cats!" roared Bill Hicks. "Listen t