Eight days passed before Sandy came riding back on Goldie, leading the bay, reaching the Three Star at the end of sunset. Mormon was in his chair with the one letter that Sandy had written on his lap. It was almost too dark to read it. Mormon's eyes were beginning to fail him at anything short of long distance but he knew the contents by heart, yet he liked to keep the letter near him as a dog loves a favorite bone long after all the nourishment from it has been absorbed. Mormon was still penitent. He knew that the sheriff had just failed to make the train, but he did not cease to blame himself for submitting Sandy and Molly to so close a chance, neither did Sam forget occasionally to remind him of his lapse of tongue.

Sandy pulled in the mare beyond the corral. He could hear the sound of Sam's harmonica and pictured him with the instrument cuddled up under his great mustache. Sam was playing The Girl I Left Behind Me and he managed to breathe a good deal of pathos into the primitive mouth organ.

"It's sure good to be home, Goldie," said Sandy. The mare whinnied. The bay nickered. Answers came back from the corral. Pronto, Sandy's first string horse, came trotting cross the corral, head up.

"Hello, you ol' pie-eater!" said Sandy. "You sure look good to me. C'udn't take you erlong this trip, son, but we'll be out ter-morrer together." Then he let out a mighty, "Hello, the house!"

Sam's lilt ceased abruptly. The riders came hurrying. Sam appeared, with Mormon waddling after, too swiftly for his best ease or grace of motion, both grabbing at Sandy, swatting him on the back as he off-saddled.

"Lemme go," said Sandy. "I'm hungry as a spring b'ar. Where's Pedro? Pedro, I'm hungry—muy hambriento. Despachese Vd. Pronto! Huevos—seis huevos—fritos! Frijoles! Jamon! Cafe! Panecilos! Todo el rancho! Pronto!"

"Si, seÑor, inmediatamente." And, with a yell for Joe the half-breed, Pedro hurried away, grinning, to prepare the six fried eggs, the ham, the coffee, the muffins, everything in the larder!

His two partners watched him eat, plying him with food and then with question after question about the trip, about Barbara Redding and about Molly's going to school. Mormon made abject apology for talking too much and Sandy told how close a shave it had been.

"I don't cotton to playin' jack-rabbit to Plimsoll and Jordan's coyotes," said Sandy. "Speshully Plimsoll, who's at the bottom of the whole thing. Nex' time he may not have the law backin' him, an' I won't have to run. How's the sheriff?""Sort of tamed. They've been kiddin' him a mite. Seems he done some boastin' 'fore he started. His car's laid up fo' repairs. Jordan's layin' low. Miss Bailey, she's at the head of the Wimmen's League to gen'ally clean up politics an' the town, one to the same time. I figger the first thing their broom's goin' to locate'll be either Jordan or Plimsoll. They're sure goin' into all the dark corners an' under the furniture. She's a hustler an' she's thorough, is Mirandy Bailey."

"Where'd you learn all this, Mormon? Over to Herefo'd?"

"'Pears Miss Bailey's took a great interest—in Molly," said Sam, with a grin. "She's been over here twice to see if there was news. Mormon entertained her. He seems to be the fav'rite. Beats all how one man'll charm the fair sect, like honey'll bring flies, while another ain't ever bothered."

Mormon changed the trend of the conversation by demanding to know about the school.

"Molly's got an outfit Barbara Redding bought her," said Sandy. "Trunk an' leather grip, all kinds of do-dads. School costs fifteen hundred bucks a year. The rest of Molly's money is banked. Barbara picked out a school in Pennsylvania she said was the best. Here's an advertisement of it."

He handed the magazine leaf to Sam who read over the items with Mormon looking over his shoulder, forming the words with his lips. Sam read:

Sam made heavy going of many of the words that left him in the dark as to their meaning. Sandy tried to elucidate, repeating the explanations Barbara Redding had given him.

"Campus is the College Field, Sam," he said.

"Then why in time don't they say so? Ain't they goin' to teach her to talk United States? I s'pose them things is all fine an' necessary fo' the female eddication but, dern me, if I can see where she's goin' to find time to eat an' sleep."

"It's been all-fired lonely with both you an' her gone," said Mormon. "An' the dawg ain't eat a mouthful, I don't believe. Mebbe you can coax him, Sandy. Set around an' howled like a sick coyote fo' fo'-five days—mostly nights. If the gel balks at all that line of stuff I'll stand back of her to quit an' come back to Three Star.""An' have Jordan git her away an' put her under Plimsoll's guardeenship?"

"He c'udn't do that. Mirandy Bailey 'ud block him."

"He c'udn't do anything," said Sandy. "I got myse'f app'inted legal guardeen to Molly while we was in Santa Rosa, one day Barbara an' Molly was shoppin'. John Redding's lawyer fixed it up."

The months passed without especial incident at the Three Star. Sandy purchased a Champion Hereford bull for the herd out of the ranch share of the faro winnings. Other improvements were added, and the three partners seemed on the fair way to prosperity. Sandy's theory that better bred and better fed beef, bringing better prices, would pay, began to demonstrate itself slowly, though it would take three years before the get of the thoroughbred stock was ready for marketing.

Occasional letters came from Molly. Homesickness and unhappiness showed between the lines of the first epistles, despite her evident efforts to conceal them. Her ways were not the ways of the other girls who were developing a well poised personality through intellectual, moral, social and physical training. She apparently formed no friendships and it seemed that none were invited from her.

"If she's happy, I'm a Gila lizard," said Mormon. "What's the sense of havin' her miserable fo' the sake of a li'l' book learnin'. She's gettin' to spell so I can't make out what she's writin' about."

At last Molly wrote that she had made the basketball team and won honors and favors. She gained laurels for Corona in swimming and tennis, and life went more merrily. Mormon looked up tennis outfits in his mail catalogue and sent for a book on the game, which he soon abandoned.

"You have to learn a foreign langwidge before you start to play," he said. "Leastwise a code. The langwidge ain't what you'd expect them to be handin' out in a young lady's college. All erbout deuce an' love. I'd a notion we'd fix up the game fo' her so she'd c'ud keep it up but I dunno. It sure ain't a fat man's game. It's a human grasshopper's."