Dawn was only a second or two behind him. The pair of mettlesome ponies fled along the trail toward the waiting horseman, their riders uttering buoyant little cries of encouragement and laughter. It was the usual race, and Ronny always won. Dawn could not quite keep up with Lightning.

“Buenos dias, seÑor (how are you, sir)?” Ronny greeted cheerily as she reined in near her father’s horse. “Stand and deliver. What’s in that fat, interesting package at your saddle bow? I can guess. You’ve been to Teresa’s.”

“Who is Teresa?” Mr. Lynne inquired with guileless interest.

“Teresa is a most amiable Spanish donna who is famed for the deliciousness of her candied fruits, such as you have in two tin boxes wrapped in one package,” Ronny triumphantly informed. “Get down from your horse, SeÑor Lynne, and hand over the spoils to us. If you’re good, we may ask you to sit beside us on that nice flat rock over there and attend a picnic.”

“You win. Come and get it.” Mr. Lynne had sprung from his horse and was waving the large package temptingly at Ronny. Marjorie sat on her pony, watching the devoted pair with an affectionate smile. She was thinking that Mr. Lynne was almost as dear and full of fun as General. But not quite, she made loyal reservation.

Ronny had left Lightning’s back in a twinkling and was making energetic grabs at the package her father was swaying back and forth just out of her reach.

“You’re in this, Lightning. Candy, old dear. Think of that.” The pony sent up an approving whinny. Dawn also began to neigh vigorously. “Can’t fool you two beauties. You know what’s in those boxes as well as I.”

Ronny managed to secure the package. She had the wrapper off of it in a flash, revealing two square tin boxes such as she was famed for having provided at the Travelers’ campus spreads. She handed one of the tin boxes to Marjorie and sat down on the flat rock with the other on her lap to explore its contents.

“Um-m. Cherries, apricots and plums!” she exclaimed. “Two hours yet till dinner. Sit down, SeÑor Lynne and SeÑorita Dean. You’re invited to a feast.”

“Teresa sends you her best wishes and says she will have plenty of candied fruit packed for you by the time you are ready to go East to Hamilton.” Teresa was the wife of Mr. Lynne’s oldest foreman and was noted for her skill in candying fruit.

“Teresa doesn’t know yet that I’m not going East again this fall.” Ronny turned calm gray eyes upon her father as she bit into a luscious cherry.

“I’m afraid you will have to go,” Mr. Lynne said with apparent regretful seriousness. He was a big fair giant of a man with penetrating blue eyes, a strong square chin and thick fair hair brushed high off his broad forehead. His facial expression was kindly, yet suggested great will-power.

“I am going to Mexico on a prospecting trip for silver. I promised some friends of mine long ago that I would join their expedition. I shall be gone all winter. I can’t take you with me, and I don’t wish you to be alone at ManaÑa. It’s lucky I can pack you off to Hamilton again. Such a strain off my mind,” he ended teasingly.

“You are a sham,” Ronny set the box of cherries on the ground. Her arms went round her father’s neck. She placed a playful hand to his lips. “Not another word. You know you only think I want to go East again. So you have joined——”

“Well, don’t you?” her father tenderly demanded.

“Not more than to stay here with you,” she answered honestly.

“But how can you stay here with me when I shan’t be here? You aren’t going to say I can’t go to Mexico, are you?” he put on an expression of blank disappointment.

“Can you say on your word of honor that you aren’t going away on my account?” Ronny countered severely.

“You haven’t answered my questions yet,” came the laughing evasion. “Besides you took me so by surprise that I forgot I had two letters for Marjorie.”

Mr. Lynne reached into a pocket of his tweed riding coat and drew forth two envelopes. One was square and pale gray. The other was square and white. Sight of it sent two happy color signals flying to Marjorie’s cheeks. Hal’s familiar hand on the white square made her heart beat faster. Quickly she laid the gray envelope over it, striving to keep her lovely face from indexing her love for Hal. She bent purposely wrinkled brows over the gray envelope. It bore a San Francisco postmark. The writing on it seemed oddly familiar, yet she could not place it. So far as she knew she had neither acquaintances nor friends in San Francisco. She courteously tucked both letters into a coat pocket and again turned her attention to the merry little tilt still going on between Ronny and her father.

“I’ll confess, if you will,” Mr. Lynne was saying. “But you first.”

“Confess what?” Ronny put on a non-comprehending air.

“Can you truthfully say that you’d rather stay at home this year than go back to Hamilton and finish your part of the work of building the dormitory?” There was an undercurrent of seriousness in the light tone of the question.

“When you put matters that way, no. You’re awfully mean.” Ronny laughed half vexedly. “Now it’s my turn. Hadn’t your friends forgotten all about that silver expedition until you reminded them of it? Why need you go prospecting when you are not a prospector?”

“I really don’t know much about my friends’ memories. I am obliged to become a prospector in order to make you go back to Hamilton. It’s the only way. Now, isn’t it?”

“I can’t think of any other,” Ronny admitted. “It’s dear in you.” There was a tiny quaver in her clear enunciation.

“Not a bit of it. It’s necessary for you to return to Hamilton to finish your part of the dormitory enterprise,” came her father’s crisp decision. “Never undertake a thing unless you are prepared to finish it, Little Comrade.” It was her father’s pet name for Ronny. “What do you say, Marjorie?” he turned to the radiant-faced Lieutenant.

“I ought to be sympathizing with you because you won’t see Ronny this winter. But if you only knew how we need her on the campus. She is Page and Dean’s greatest show feature, not to mention what she is to the Travelers and the dormitory enterprise. It’s the best news I could possibly hear,” Marjorie said with happy enthusiasm.

Seated on the flat rock and enjoying Teresa’s delicious candied fruit an hour winged away before the trio ended their absorbed confab and rose to take the trail to ManaÑa. The sun was fast dropping in the West, a huge flaming ball against the pale tints of the evening sky.

Mounted again upon Dawn’s back Marjorie gazed dreamily across the broad acres of ManaÑa. The great ranch lay in waves of undulating green forest and meadow, rising in the east to distant purple-tipped heights. She was experiencing an odd sense of unreality in the scene. Was it really, she, Marjorie Dean, who looked down from a height upon a magnificent verdant summer world so far removed from the one she had ever known. To her, Lucero de la ManaÑa was indeed the star of the morning—but of a magic realm.

Reality? Her hand sought the pocket of her riding coat in which reposed Hal’s letter. She had told Ronny that it seemed strange to her to be betrothed to Hal. Her fingers closed around the envelope that held his letter with the conviction that, after all, Hal was the beloved reality; ManaÑa was a beautiful illusion.

She knew in her glad heart that she had not dreamed of a spring night of magic and moonshine when she had walked with Hal in the sweet fragrance of Spring, aflower, and felt the tender clasp of his arms and the touch of his lips on her own. She had not dreamed that she had promised him her future when her work should have been done. It was all true.