Sure enough, there on the edge of the crowd was Bennie, but alack!--no Solomon.

"Stop the train, can't you, Uncle Cliff?" wailed Blue Bonnet. "Alec will be left--and Solomon too--"

Uncle Cliff leaped to the bottom step,--the train was still only crawling,--and with one hand on the rail leaned out and peered after Alec. Blue Bonnet gave a nervous clutch at his sleeve. What he saw evidently rea.s.sured Mr. Ashe, for suddenly he straightened up and held out both arms. A second later a brown furry object came hurtling through the air and was caught ignominiously by the tail. Quick as a flash Uncle Cliff tossed the indignant Solomon to Blue Bonnet, and bent down to lend a helping hand to Alec. That young gentleman scrambled up with more haste than elegance, just as the train ceased to crawl and settled down to the real business of travelling.

"I'll never forget this, Alec Trent, as long as I live,--I think you deserve a Carnegie medal!" Blue Bonnet cried fervently. "I'd never get over it if Solomon should be lost."

"He wouldn't have been--lost, exactly," returned Alec in an odd tone.

"Why, what do you mean? Where did you find him?" Blue Bonnet demanded.

And Alec, bursting into a laugh in spite of his awful news, returned: "I found him just where that Blake boy left him--tied on to the end of the car!"

CHAPTER II

IN THE BLUE BONNET COUNTRY

"IF one of you speaks aloud in the next five minutes," declared Blue Bonnet earnestly, "I'll never forgive you."

No one being inclined to risk Blue Bonnet's undying enmity, there was complete silence for the s.p.a.ce of time imposed. They were rolling along the smooth white road between the railway station and the ranch, Grandmother Clyde and the girls in a buckboard drawn by st.u.r.dy little mustangs, while Alec, Uncle Joe and Uncle Cliff, who had stayed behind to look after the luggage, were following on horseback.

Blue Bonnet sat tense and still, her hands clasped in her lap, the color coming and going in her face in rapid waves of pink and white; her eyes very shiny, her lips quivering. This home-coming was having an effect she had not dreamed of. Every familiar object, every turn of the road that brought her nearer the beloved ranch, gave her a new and delicious thrill.

As they neared the modern wire fence two dusky little greaser piccaninnies rose out of the chaparral, hurled themselves on the big gate and held it open, standing like sentinels, bursting with importance, as the buckboard rolled through.

"They're Pancho's twins!" cried Blue Bonnet. "Stop, Miguel, while I give them something." Hurriedly seizing a half-eaten box of candy from Amanda's surprised hands, Blue Bonnet leaned down and tossed it to the grinning youngsters.

"_Muchas gracias_, Senorita!" they cried in a duet, their black eyes wide with joy.

"Bless the babies!" exclaimed Kitty, "--did you hear what they called you?"

Blue Bonnet laughed. "I'm never called anything else here. They meant 'Many thanks, Ma'am.' You will be 'Senorita' too,--better get used to it."

"Oh, I shall love it," cried Kitty. "It sounds like a t.i.tle--'my lady'

or 'your grace' or something grand."

"Grandmother will be 'Senora'--doesn't it just suit her, girls?" asked Blue Bonnet.

"Mrs. Clyde, may we call you 'Senora,' too?" asked Debby, "--just while we're on the ranch?"

"Debby believes in the eternal fitness of things," put in Kitty.

"Certainly, you may call me Senora," said Mrs. Clyde. "When you're in Texas do as the Texans do," she paraphrased.

"I intend to learn all the Spanish I can while I'm here," remarked Sarah. "I brought a grammar and a dictionary--"

A chorus of indignation went up from the other girls.

"This isn't a 'General Culture Club,' Sarah Blake," scolded Kitty. "We didn't come to the Blue Bonnet ranch for mutual improvement--but for _fun_!"

"We'll make a bonfire of those books," warned Blue Bonnet.

"All the Spanish that I can absorb through my--pores, is welcome to stick," said Debby, "but I'm not going to dig for it."

Sarah tactfully changed the subject. "Your house is a good way from the gate, Blue Bonnet," she remarked.

"Nearly two miles," Blue Bonnet smiled.

"There's nothing like owning all outdoors!" commented Kitty.

"Grandfather used to own nearly all outdoors," returned Blue Bonnet.

"When father was a little boy n.o.body had fences and the cattle ranged through two or three counties. But now we keep a lot of fence-riders, who don't do a thing but mend fences, day after day. There's the bridge,--now as soon as we cross the river you can see the ranch-house."

"Is this what you call the 'river?'" Sarah asked, as they rattled over the pretty little stream.

"We call it a 'rio' in Texas, and you'd better not insult us by calling it a creek, Senorita Blake," Blue Bonnet warned her.

"I won't--'rio' is such a pretty name," said Sarah, making a mental note of it for future use.

"There!" cried Blue Bonnet, "behold the 'casa' of the Blue Bonnet ranch!"

What they saw was a long, low, rambling house, with wide, hospitable verandas embowered in half-tropical vines. It had evidently started out as a one-roomed, Spanish 'adobe,' and, as the needs of the family demanded it, an ell had been added here, a room there, like cells in a bee-hive, until now it covered a good deal of territory, still keeping its one-storied, Mission-like character.

"Oh, Blue Bonnet--it's just what I wanted it to be," exclaimed Kitty.

"It looks as if a fat, Spanish monk might come out of that door this very minute."

"Instead of which there is my dear old Benita, and Pancho and his wife and the children and--oh, everybody!" Blue Bonnet was bouncing up and down now with excitement.

Alec and the other two riders came up in a cloud of dust just as Miguel raced the mustangs up to the veranda steps, where all the ranch hands were gathered to greet the young Senorita.

"Senorita mia!" cried Benita, and Blue Bonnet leaped from the wheel straight into her old nurse's arms.

"And this is Grandmother, Benita," said Blue Bonnet, helping Mrs.

Clyde from her place.

"The little Senora's mother--G.o.d bless you!" cried Benita in Spanish.

Then, in spite of her stiff joints, she made a deep, old-fashioned curtsy.

Tears sprang to the eyes of the Eastern woman. "Thank you, Benita,"

she said. "My daughter always wrote lovingly of you."

"Blessed Senora!" breathed Benita fervently.

"This is my grandmother, everybody," said Blue Bonnet, presenting Mrs.

Clyde to the entire circle, "and these are my friends--'amigos' from Ma.s.sachusetts."