"DEAR GIRLS: Don't you ever go and get conditioned at school; take my solemn warning. That awful thing hanging over me is going to do its best to spoil my grand summer in Texas. I intended to do a lot of studying as soon as we arrived here, so that I might have a few weeks perfectly free from worry; but goodness me, how can anybody open a book when there's something going on every blessed minute of the day?

It's a pity it wasn't Sarah who was conditioned. She actually likes to study and if it came to a choice between a horseback ride and doing ten pages of grammar, she'd jump at the grammar. Sometimes I think Sarah isn't made like other girls. Not quite normal, you know.

"Now that I've seen Blue Bonnet at home, I realize what a hard time she must have had in Woodford, at first especially. She's treated like a perfect _queen_ here, and doesn't have to mind a soul except Senora--that's what we call Mrs. Clyde. Fancy having run the ranch all your life and then at fifteen having to start in and obey Miss Clyde, and Mr. Hunt, and the rest of those mighty ones! I think she's a brick to have done it at all, and I take back every criticism I ever made of her. She must be terribly rich, but doesn't put on any airs at all.

"How is little old Woodford getting along without us?

I'm almost ashamed to write Mother and Father, for I can't say I'm homesick and parents always expect you to be. Debby wants to finish my page, so no more now from

"Your loving AMANDA."

"DEAR SUSY AND RUTH: There's only room for me to say h.e.l.lo, and how are you? I wish I were a grand descriptive genius like Robert Louis Stevenson so that I could describe this wonderful Texas. But description isn't my strong point--you know how I just sc.r.a.ped through Eng. Comp. so I'll not try any flights.

"It isn't half as _wild_ as we used to imagine it. The cowboys don't go shooting up towns and hanging horse-thieves to all the trees the way they do in most of the Western stories. Even the cattle are tame, but Blue Bonnet says that is because they are fenced nowadays, and most of them de-horned. All the cowboys except two are Mexicans, and they are so picturesque and--different. Mr. Ashe says Texas is filling up with negroes but he won't have any on the ranch,--he sticks to the Mexicans, and I'm mighty glad, for they seem just to suit the atmosphere. Juanita, who waits on the table, is a beauty, with the most coquettish airs.

Miguel is in love with her, and we all hope she won't keep him waiting too long, for if they are really going to be married, we want a grand wedding while we are here. Wouldn't that be thrilling?

"I've just room to sign my name,

"Yours, with love, "DEBBY."

"TO THE ABSENT TWO-SEVENTHS OF THE 'WE-ARE-ITS'--Greeting!

Please don't imagine that I forced my way into this Round Robin affair. My masculine chirography probably looks out of place in this epistolary triumph--ahem!--but you can thank Kitty Clark for it. I don't know whether or not this is intended as a letter of condolence, but it surely ought to be,--anybody who has to miss this summer-session on the Blue Bonnet ranch deserves flowers and slow music.

"This letter will be postmarked 'Jonah'--but don't be alarmed; they say it's a harmless one. I'm going to ride over with the mail. Just a little matter of twenty miles, a trifle out here! Kitty says she doesn't see how we can expect any letters to reach a place with such a name, but I've faith in the collection of relatives left behind in Woodford.

"Now I advise you both, the next time you go into the vicinity of anything catching, cross your fingers and say 'King's Ex.' for you're missing the time of your young lives. As a place of residence, Texas certainly has my vote. A fellow can breathe his lungs full here without robbing the next fellow of oxygen.

"With unbounded sympathy, "Yours, "ALEC TRENT."

Blue Bonnet collected the literary installments from each of the different authors and put them in a big envelope.

"This 'round-robin' is as plump as a partridge," she remarked. "I hope Susy and Ruth won't strain their eyes devouring it."

"The Woodford postman in our part of town will have an unusually warm greeting, I fancy," said Mrs. Clyde, gathering up all the other letters and placing them with the round-robin in the roomy mail-bag.

"I think Father had better have a social at the church for the We-are-Seven relatives and ask them to bring our letters. Reading and pa.s.sing them around would make a very interesting evening's entertainment," said Sarah.

Blue Bonnet paused long enough to shake her. "Don't you dare suggest such a horrible thing to your father, Sarah! My letter wasn't intended for--public consumption."

"Nor mine!" exclaimed Kitty. "Father and mother know what a scatter-brain I am, but it's a family skeleton which they don't care to have aired."

"Is the mail all in?" asked Alec in an official tone.

"All in, postmaster," replied Mrs. Clyde, fastening the bag and handing it to him with a smile. "You're not going alone, are you?"

"No, Shady is going along this trip, Senora," he replied.

"Why don't we all go?" asked Blue Bonnet; "it isn't much of a ride."

Sarah looked up in alarm, but met Mrs. Clyde's rea.s.suring glance. "Not this time, dear," she returned to Blue Bonnet. "So far you have had all play and no work. The piano hasn't been touched since we arrived."

Blue Bonnet said nothing, but into her eyes there sprang a sudden rebellion. Out there by the stables Don and Solomon were frolicking, ready at a moment's notice to dash away at Firefly's heels. Away in front of the house stretched the road and the prairie, calling irresistibly to her restless, roving spirit. And vacation had been so long in coming! If grandmother were going to be like Aunt Lucinda-- Again there flashed into her mind the wish so often voiced in Woodford: that there might be two of her, so that one might stay at home and be taught things while the other went wandering about as she liked. All at once she remembered Alec's suggestion--that she adopt Sarah as her "alter ego." A smile drove the cloud from her eyes.

"Can't Sarah do my practising while I do her riding?" she asked coaxingly.

Her grandmother hid a smile as she said: "I was under the impression that my coming to the ranch was to see that Blue Bonnet Ashe did her practising, mending, and had coffee only on Sundays."

Blue Bonnet colored. She had uttered those very words, and n.o.body should say that an Ashe was not sincere. Straightening up she met the questioning looks of the other girls with a resolute glance.

"Grandmother is right, as she always is, girls. I'll go and practise, and you--what will you do?"

"I'm sure all the girls will be glad of a little time to themselves,"

said the Senora. "Let us all do as we like until dinner-time. I've been longing to sit in the shade of the big magnolia ever since I came. I shall take a book and spend my two hours out there, and any one who wishes may share my bower."

"Then I'll be off," said Alec. "Any commissions for me in Jonah?" He stood like an orderly at attention, with the mail-bag slung over one shoulder and his whole bearing expressive of the importance of his mission. The sun and the wind of the prairie had already tanned his smooth skin to the ruddy hue of health, but Mrs. Clyde, observing him closely, could not fail to note how very slim and frail the erect young figure was.

"Isn't twenty miles a rather long ride on a hot day?" she asked tactfully, fearing to wound the sensitive lad.

"We shall reach Kooch's ranch by noon, and we are to rest there until it is cool again," he replied, flushing a little under her solicitous glance.

"Well, keep an eye on Shady!" said Blue Bonnet, waving him good-bye as she went to do her practising.

Fifteen minutes later each member of the ranch party was busily engaged in doing "just as she liked." Mrs. Clyde, deep in a book, sat under the fragrant magnolia; Kitty reclined on a Navajo blanket near her, lazily watching the gay-plumaged birds that made the tree a rendezvous. From the open windows of the living-room came a conscientious rendering of a "Czerny" exercise, enlivened now and then by a bar or two of a rollicking dance, with which Blue Bonnet sugar-coated her pill. In the kitchen Debby and Amanda were deep in the mysteries of "pinoche" under the tutelage of Lisa and Gertrudis; while Sarah, safe inside her own little sanctum, sat and drew threads rapturously, and later, coached by the delighted Benita, wove them into endless spider-webs.

CHAPTER V

THE SWIMMING HOLE

THEY sat up late that evening waiting for Alec to come with the mail.

Mrs. Clyde and Blue Bonnet were somewhat uneasy, for they knew he had intended to be back in time for their late supper; and when ten o'clock came and no Alec or Shady appeared, they grew openly anxious.

Uncle Cliff refused to share their worry. "Shady's no tenderfoot," he scoffed, "and holding up the mail has gone out of fashion in these parts."

Blue Bonnet had no fear of hold-ups and did not care to express her suspicion that the ride had proved too much for Alec. She found reason to reproach herself: a forty-mile ride for a delicate boy like him was a foolish undertaking and she should have realized it. She had ridden that distance herself innumerable times; but she had practically been reared in the saddle and had lived all her life in this land of great distances. It was very different with Alec. The day of their picnic in Woodford came back to her, and again she saw the boy, worn out by a much shorter ride, lying white and unconscious before the fire in the hunter's cabin. She grew almost provoked with her grandmother for having insisted upon her practising instead of riding to Jonah as she had wished. If she had gone along, she at least would have known what to do for Alec in an emergency.

At eleven the moon came up, and rising out of the prairie simultaneously with the golden disk, came Shady, riding alone. A rapid fire of questions greeted him as he came up with the mail.

"Left the young fella at Kooch's," he explained briefly.

"What was the matter?" asked Blue Bonnet anxiously.

"Well, ye see--it was this way,--" Shady paused and then stood awkwardly shifting his sombrero from hand to hand. Blue Bonnet guessed instantly that Alec had sworn the cowboy to secrecy concerning the real reason for his non-appearance, and she refrained from further questioning. But her grandmother took alarm.

"Is he hurt--or ill?" Mrs. Clyde asked quickly.

For a moment Shady avoided her eyes, then resolutely squaring his shoulders he lied boldly: "No, Senora,--the mare went lame on him.