rtner.

"Miss Cordelia, will you accept an old man for this dance?" he asked
genially. "And shall we sit it out, perhaps?"

"Oh, thank you! I'd love to," cried Cordelia in a relieved voice. "And I
shall be so glad to rest!"

"Tired--dancing?" he asked.

"Oh, no, not dancing; that is--well--" She stopped, and colored
painfully.

Mr. Hartley waited a moment, then observed with a smile:

"You seem to be looking for some one to-night, Miss Cordelia. Didn't I
hear you asking Mr. Boynton and Joe Wetherby if they knew John somebody
or other?"

Again a pink flush spread over Cordelia's face, "Yes, sir; I am looking
for somebody--four somebodies."

"You don't say! Found them yet?"

She shook her head. To the man's surprise and distress, her eyes filled
with tears.

"No, Mr. Hartley, and that's what's the trouble. That's why I'm trying
so hard to-night to ask all these people--there's such a little time
left!"

"Time--left?"

"Yes. I'd like to tell you about it, please. I think I may tell you. Of
course I haven't said a word to the girls, because the people--back in
Sunbridge--didn't want me to talk about it. I'm looking for John
Sanborn, Lester Goodwin, James Hunt, and Mrs. Lizzie Higgins. They're
all Sunbridge people who came to Texas years ago, and are lost."

Mr. Hartley gave a sudden exclamation.

"Did you say--Lester Goodwin was one?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Who wants him, and what for?"

Patiently Cordelia told him. She wore a hopeless air. She had ceased,
evidently, to expect anything that was good.

Mr. Hartley gave a low whistle. For a moment he was silent, then he
chuckled unexpectedly.

"Well, Miss Cordelia, if you hadn't looked so far away for your pony you
might have seen his tracks nearer home, perhaps. As it happens, Lester
Goodwin is right here on the ranch."

"Here? Lester Goodwin?" gasped Cordelia.

"Yes. Oh, he isn't known by that name--he preferred not to be. He came
to me fourteen years ago, and he's been here ever since. He said he
wanted to be a cowboy; that he'd always wanted to be one ever since
when, as a little boy, he used to rope his rocking-horse with his
mother's clothes-line. His uncle had wanted him to be a teacher, but he
hated the sight of books; so when his uncle died, he ran away and came
here. He said there wasn't anybody to care where he was, or what he did;
so I let him stay."

"And to think he's here now!"

"He certainly is. You see he came here because h