"I hope our picnic won't prove to be of the Sunday-school variety,"

said Kitty.

"I'm sure our Sunday-school picnics at home are always very nice,"

Sarah said reprovingly.

"Every one to his taste!" was Kitty's airy rejoinder.

"You can make up your mind that this picnic won't be like any other you ever attended," Alec a.s.sured them. "Knight has a scheme up his sleeve that will bear watching. I wonder, Blue Bonnet, if Mrs. Clyde would mind letting us take coffee?"

Blue Bonnet reflected. "To-morrow is Sunday and we're privileged to have it for breakfast. If we have it to-day instead I'm sure she won't object. What else shall we take?"

"Only some bread, some lump sugar and a tin of milk, please," said Alec modestly.

Amanda gave a sudden exclamation of joy. "Then we won't be back to lunch,--oh, Blue Bonnet, that lets us out to-day!"

They fell upon each other rapturously.

"I think we are the ones who should rejoice," said Kitty; but her remark met with the silent scorn it deserved.

They mustered a troop of twelve, all mounted, for Knight's picnic.

Riding by twos, they cantered decorously as long as the eyes of their elders followed their course; but when a turn in the road freed them from observation, there was a spurring and an urging of the wiry ponies, and away they went, recking little of the grade whether up or down.

It became a game of follow-my-leader, with Knight and Blue Bonnet heading the procession and putting their horses through a performance that would have lamed anything but a Western cow-pony. Knight finally led the way to one of the "race-paths" that abound in the hilly regions of Texas, and there began a tournament that for years lived in Sarah's memory as the most reckless exhibition of daring ever seen outside a circus-ring.

"Who made this race-track?" she asked Knight in one of the infrequent pauses in the performance.

"Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met this a.s.sertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long, edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably to show the hand of man in its creation.

"It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "--I swear it by the mane of my milk-white steed!"

Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskin pony he rode, and then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith in people imposed upon.

Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in Senorita Blake's estimation," he told her.

"What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable.

"She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm, "--but not exciting."

Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask that.

"She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible."

"And that?"

"Having been brought up in Texas!"

If Knight had expected a blush to follow his outspoken compliment he was disappointed. Blue Bonnet's hearty laugh showed a very healthy absence of self-consciousness in her make-up.

"My Aunt Lucinda thinks that is my very worst drawback," she declared; and then chirping to Firefly, she was off at a break-neck pace, hat bobbing, brown braid flying, her eyes alight with the excitement of the race.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEY ALL GATHERED GYPSY-FASHION ABOUT THE FIRE."]

The climax of the day was the gypsy picnic. When Blue Bonnet beheld the camp-fire with the pail of coffee steaming away over the bed of coals, and saw the feast spread out informally on the ground, with wild grape leaves for plates, she gave an exclamation of delight.

"Isn't it heavenly?" she cried.

Alec laughed. "I believe, Blue Bonnet, that your idea of heaven is to live in a wickiup and subsist on mustang grapes and wild berries indefinitely,--now isn't it?"

"Exactly--except that I'd add some of the bacon Knight is preparing to give us. That's the way the cowboys cook it."

Knight had cut a dozen or more twigs having a forked branch at the tip; on the end of each he placed a slice of bacon and then handed around the "forks" ceremoniously. "I'm not going to offer you anything so dainty as toasted moonshine," he explained, "but it's a heap more substantial."

They all gathered gypsy-fashion about the fire, toasting the bacon and their faces impartially; then transferring the crisp curly brown strips to the big slices of bread, devoured them with exclamations of approval that were most grateful to the arranger of the feast. Even canned cream failed to detract from the flavor of the coffee, and they consumed great quant.i.ties of the fragrant beverage, even Sarah partaking most intemperately.

Only a lot of ponies inured to the hardships of the round-up would have remained patient through the frolics of that day, and some of these wiry ponies looked rather drooping when the picnickers turned towards camp.

Mrs. Clyde, who had been watching the road rather anxiously as the shadows began to lengthen, brightened at once when Blue Bonnet's cheery call sounded through the trees.

"Oh, Grandmother, we've had the most gorgeous time in the world!" Blue Bonnet cried, as she flung herself out of the saddle. "Did you ever see such a beautifully mussed-up crowd in all your life?"

"If that is an evidence of a 'gorgeous time' you must certainly have had one," Mrs. Clyde smiled as her glance travelled from one rumpled and spotted We are Seven to another.

"These are the only skirts we brought and mine is all spluttered up with bacon," mourned Sarah.

"I think you will all have to go to bed while I wash them," the Senora suggested laughingly.

"Grandmother, please don't let Sarah play upon your sympathies. She doesn't appreciate how becoming a little dirt is to her peculiar style of beauty. She looks almost--human." The look of pained surprise Sarah turned on her sent Blue Bonnet off in a fit of merriment. "Oh, for a picture of that expression!" she cried. "And that reminds me,--I told all the boys to be at the Spring in fifteen minutes. There is plenty of light for a snap-shot and I've just a few films left."

"Oh, Blue Bonnet, haven't you done enough tramping to-day?" her grandmother exclaimed. "You ought to rest."

Blue Bonnet shook her head. "I can't rest till I get that picture. I want the boys and the We are Sevens on the little rustic bridge. Now, Sarah, don't you dare tidy up till I get you just as you are. I want you to pose as Terrible Tom the Texas Terror."

That Sarah had her own opinion as to who the Texas Terror might be was shown by her expression as she relinquished her design of brushing her hair, and followed the other girls up the hill to the Big Spring.

The boys were already a.s.sembled and were now grouped on the bridge in att.i.tudes meant to be artistic and fetching.

The rustic bridge--rather more rustic than substantial--was suspended just over a pretty waterfall, which slipped down a smooth runway of eight or ten feet into a pool all foam and spray; a charming spot for a group-picture. It required both skill and patience to get every one posed and the camera focussed; Blue Bonnet had just completed these preliminaries, when Alec upset everything by insisting that he should be the photographer and she a member of the group. The rest supported his contention that she should be in the picture, and in the argument that followed, the chances for any picture at all grew slim.

Just then Uncle Joe appeared, and was at once pressed into service.

Blue Bonnet gave explicit directions as to the precise moment at which the bulb was to be pressed, and then proceeded to join the rest who were in the agonies of trying to look pleasant.

"Do hurry, Blue Bonnet," urged Sarah nervously, "I can hear the bridge creaking."

A roar of derision followed this declaration and some of the smaller boys began stamping on the old timbers for the sheer joy of seeing poor Sarah quake. At the precise moment that Blue Bonnet stepped from the bank to her place by the rail, there was a loud report, followed by a scream.

Uncle Joe, looking up from the reflector, saw the bridge parted neatly in the middle, and the entire party shooting the chutes in a most informal manner. By the time the first boy had finished the descent, Uncle Joe was in the water fishing out the gasping victims. The pool was not deep, but the swift fall carried the smaller lads under the surface, and they came up too dazed to see the hands held out to seize them. Knight and Sandy found their feet at once, and with Uncle Joe formed a dam against which the others were caught like salmon in a river-trap.

Sarah was fished up by her blond braids and came up gasping, "I told you so!" before she opened her eyes.