"Pleased to know ye!" said Pinto Pete and Shady, the only American cowboys on the ranch; while the Mexicans, as one voice, gave a hearty chorus of greeting.

The six "amigos" from Ma.s.sachusetts were thrilled to the core, although at the same time a trifle embarra.s.sed as to the correct way of responding to this vociferous welcome. Blue Bonnet set them all an example: she had a smile and a word for every man, woman and child, and finally sent them all off with a--"Come back when my trunks arrive!" And the hint brought a fresh gleam to already beaming faces.

Later, after a bountiful supper, they all gathered once more on the broad veranda while Blue Bonnet distributed her gifts. That those days in New York had been profitably spent was fully attested now when the contents of the many trunks were displayed. There were ribbons, scarfs and gay beads for the women, toys and sweets for the children, and wonderful pocket-knives, pipes and tobacco pouches for the men.

The Blue Bonnet ranch had been part of an original Spanish land-grant in the days when Texas was still part of Mexico, and had descended from father to son until it came into the hands of Blue Bonnet's grandfather. Many of the Mexican ranch-hands had been born on the place and looked on the Ashe family as their natural guardians and protectors. As yet they had not acquired a Yankee sense of independence, nor had they lost the soft Southern courtesy inherent in their race. They came up one at a time to Blue Bonnet as she stood at the top of the steps, her gifts in a great heap beside her; and each one, as he received his gift from her hand, called down a blessing on the head of the young Senorita. Then, laughing, chatting, and comparing gifts like a crowd of children, they trooped away, the single men to the "bunk-house" by the big corral, the married couples and their children to little cabins scattered over the place.

"It's just like some old Spanish tale," declared Alec. "Blue Bonnet is a princess just returned to her castle, and all the serfs are come to pay her homage."

"I suppose Don Quixote will be off soon, hunting wind-mills?"

suggested Kitty, with a mocking glance at Alec, whose new gun was the pride of his heart.

Alec deigned no reply.

"Look!" said Mrs. Clyde, softly, "--there goes the sun."

They followed her glance across the prairie that stretched away, green and softly undulating, in front of the veranda, and watched the red disk as it sank in a blaze of glory at the edge of the plain.

"Now you know," said Blue Bonnet, "why I felt like pushing back the houses in Woodford--at first they just suffocated me."

Mrs. Clyde smiled with new understanding. "You probably agree with our Ma.s.sachusetts writer who complained that people in cities live too close together and not near enough," she said, patting Blue Bonnet's head as the girl, sitting on the step below her, leaned against her knee.

"Didn't you ever get lonesome here?" asked Debby, snuggling up to Amanda. She had been brought up among houses.

"Lonesome?" echoed Blue Bonnet. "I never knew what lonesome meant--till my first day in school!"

All too soon came bedtime.

"Where are we all to sleep?" Blue Bonnet asked Benita. It was like Blue Bonnet not to give the matter a thought until beds were actually in demand.

Benita led the way proudly. "The Senora will have the little Senora's room," she said, throwing open the door of that long unused chamber.

Mrs. Clyde entered it with softened eyes.

"Senorita's own room is ready for her, and here is place for the others." Benita proceeded to the very end of a long ell to a huge airy room, seemingly all windows. It was Blue Bonnet's old nursery, and, next to the living-room, the largest room in the house. Four single beds, one in each corner, showed how Benita had solved the sleeping problem.

The girls gave a shout of delight; visions of bedtime frolics and long talks after lights were out, sent them dancing about the place.

"I tell you what," announced Blue Bonnet, "--if you imagine I am going off by myself when there's a sleeping-party like this going on, you're mistaken. I say--" here she turned on Sarah, "--you've always wanted a bed-room all to yourself; you told me so, one day. Well, here's your chance--you're welcome to every inch of mine!"

Sarah, quite willing to confine her "parties" to daylight hours, accepted the proposition eagerly. Maybe then she could get a peek at those Spanish books.

"Are you sure you're willing to give it up?" she asked quite honestly.

And Blue Bonnet with an incredulous stare returned: "Are you quite willing to give _this_ up?"

"Perfectly!" exclaimed Sarah with such promptness that Blue Bonnet dismissed her lurking suspicion that Sarah was just "being polite" and accepted the exchange.

It was a happy Sarah who tucked herself away in a little bed all to herself, in a dainty room destined to be her very own for two long months. Four times happy was the quartet who shared the nursery. It was a long time before they subsided. There were so many things to be observed and discussed in that delightful place. Uncle Joe Terry had had a hand in its arrangement, and now that worthy man would have felt well repaid if he could have heard the gales of merriment over his masterpieces of interior decoration.

In her childhood Blue Bonnet had been blessed--or afflicted--with more dolls than ever fell to the lot of child before. Now the long-discarded nursery-folk formed a frieze around the entire room, the poor darlings being, like Blue-beard's wives, suspended by their hair. Every nationality and every degree of mutilation was there represented, and the effect was funny beyond description. On the broad mantel-shelf over the stone fireplace reposed drums, merry-go-rounds, trumpets and toy horses; while on the hearth was a tiny kitchen range bearing a complete a.s.sortment of pots and pans of a most diminutive size. In every available nook of the room stood doll-carriages, rocking-horses, go-carts and fire-engines, each showing the scars of Blue Bonnet's stormy childhood.

"I wish," cried Kitty, "that we weren't any of us a day over seven!"

While the girls were still making merry over her childhood treasures Blue Bonnet slipped away. She had not had a word alone with Uncle Cliff for days, and had exchanged only a hurried greeting with Uncle Joe at the station. And there were such heaps of things to talk over!

She found them both on the veranda, enjoying the evening breeze that came laden with sweet scents from off the prairie. Blue Bonnet clapped her hands over Uncle Joe's eyes in her old madcap fashion.

"It's Blue Bon--er--Elizabeth, I mean," he guessed promptly.

"Wrong!" cried Blue Bonnet sternly. "Elizabeth Ashe was left behind in Ma.s.sachusetts, and only Blue Bonnet has come back to the ranch."

"Thank goodness for that!" breathed Uncle Joe devoutly. "Elizabeth came mighty hard. It didn't fit, somehow. I reckon you're glad to get _home_, Blue Bonnet?"

"Glad? Why, there isn't a word in the whole English dictionary that means just what I feel, Uncle Joe," replied Blue Bonnet, perching on the arm of his chair. "I love every inch of the state of Texas."

The two men exchanged a significant glance that was not lost on Blue Bonnet.

"Oh, I know what you are thinking of, Uncle Cliff. You remember the day when I said I hated the West and all it stood for. I meant that too--then. But I feel different now. It isn't that I'm sorry I went away; I just had to go, feeling as I did. I reckon I'll always be that way--I have to find things out for myself."

Uncle Joe smiled humorously. "Reckon we're most of us built that way, eh, Cliff?"

Mr. Ashe gave a rueful nod. "Yes, what the other fellow has been through doesn't count for much. We all have to blister our fingers before we'll believe that fire really burns."

They were all silent for a moment.

"Has any one seen Solomon?" asked Blue Bonnet suddenly.

"I think Don is showing him over the ranch," replied Uncle Joe. "I saw them both headed for the stables a while ago."

"I'm glad they're going to get on well," said Blue Bonnet in a relieved tone. "I was afraid Don would be jealous." She gave a clear loud whistle, and a moment later the two animals came racing across the yard, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be first up the steps. Blue Bonnet stooped and picked up the smaller dog, fondling him and saying foolish things. Don, the big collie, gave a low whine and looked up at her piteously.

"Not jealous, did you say?" laughed Uncle Joe.

Blue Bonnet patted the collie's head. "Good dog," she said soothingly.

"You're too big to be carried, Don." Then she put down Solomon and bending put a hand under Don's muzzle; his soft eyes met hers affectionately. "I'm going to put Solomon in your charge--understand?

You must warn him about snakes, Don,--and don't let the coyotes get him." A sharp bark from Don Blue Bonnet was satisfied to take for an affirmative answer, and with another pat sent him off for the night.

"Has Alec some place to sleep?" inquired Blue Bonnet, her hospitable instincts suddenly and rather tardily aroused.

"Benita has put him in the ell by me. He's there now, unpacking to-night so that he won't have to waste any time to-morrow. I never saw a boy so keen about ranch-life as he is. He seems to look on himself as a sort of pioneer in a new country," Uncle Joe chuckled.

"It's all new to him," rejoined Blue Bonnet. "This is his first glimpse of the West. I hope he gets strong and well out here--General Trent worries so about him."

"It will be the making of him," Uncle Cliff a.s.sured her. "He'll go back to Ma.s.sachusetts as husky as Pinto Pete, if he'll just learn to live outdoors, and leave books alone for a while."

"I'm going to hide every book he has brought with him," declared Blue Bonnet. "And Sarah Blake will need looking after--she has the book habit, too."