DREAMING ON SPRUCE BOUGHS

The barking of dogs sounded down in the valley, and a door opened, letting out a pathway of lamplight.

“That’s mother—there’s mother now,” cried Jean, and she sent out a long, clear call of happy greeting that was answered by the lamp, raised and lowered as a welcoming signal.

“Guess she’ll be glad to see us coming home,” Mr. Murray said. “She’s anxious to meet you after reading of you in Jeanie’s letters.”

“Just the same as we want to know all of Miss Murray’s family,” Ruth replied, eagerly. “You don’t know how we’ve coaxed her over and over to tell us about them and the ranch.”

“You’ll have to wait for daylight to get an idea of the place. Whoa, there, Peanuts.”

“Peanuts! Is that its name?” Sue asked.

“It sure is. Because of the most inordinate longing and yearning and hankering after peanuts that ever a horse had.”

Mr. Murray laughed, as he got out, and lifted down the girls. Jean was already in her mother’s arms, and trying to introduce the new guests at the same time.

“Well, come in, do, all of you, where the light is, and I can see you to tell you all apart,” exclaimed Mrs. Murray, happily. “Father, you and Don put the girls’ trunks down in the cabin there.”

“We didn’t bring any, Mrs. Murray,” said Polly. “Only our suit-cases.”

“They know this is not a summer resort, mother,” Jean put in. “I told them just to bring what they would need for roughing it.”

“’Tis more convenient traveling that way, I suppose. And what a journey you have had.” All the while Mrs. Murray talked she was bustling about the great kitchen, preparing supper for them. “Now, sit up, and eat, for you must be hungry. Jeanie, child, you may sit here in father’s place.”

Such a supper as the girls enjoyed that first night at the ranch! Brook trout that Don had caught that morning early, baked potatoes, and graham bread, and glasses of milk that were half filled with cream.

“You mustn’t eat too heartily, going to bed,” Mrs. Murray told them, “but to-morrow you can make up for it. I shall mother every one of you while you’re here.”

“We’ll be good,” Polly promised, and the others chimed in willingly enough.

“Where are you going to put us all to sleep, motherie?” asked Jean.

“And well may you ask me that, Jeanie,” laughed her mother, with the light burr to her speech giving it a delightful softness. “We have but three beds here in the main house, you must know, girls. There is the large bunkhouse for the men down below the corral, and the two cabins, as we call them. One was our first house here, when father and I took up the claim over thirty years back, and the other the boys built for themselves. So after talking it over, we thought it would be best to give you the home cabin, and then you’ll be by yourselves, and can have as good a time as you like. If you’re timid the first few nights, Jeanie or myself will stay with you.”

“Oh, we won’t be timid, Mrs. Murray,” protested Ted, with quick mental visions of royal good times in the cabin. “We’ll be ever so good. I think that’s a dandy plan, girls.”

“And so do we,” chorused the rest.

“Then gather up your belongings, and follow me,” called Jeanie, picking up a lantern that stood by the door. “Is there a light there, motherie?”

“Yes, child, on the table in the large room. Good-night, bairnies. And that’s all you are, too,” she smiled, “despite your height and weight. Just a peck of bairnies to be happy and enjoy life while you may. God bless you all.”

“Look out for the two steps as you go into the cabin,” Peggie called last of all, and they followed Jean out into the night. It was bright with moonlight. Every shadow was distinct and black, and for a minute they stood and looked about, at the near-by buttes, rising bluffs of rock and sandstone, back of the ranch, that blended into the shadowy foothills beyond; and these again, led upward against the clear night sky, until one could see far, far away, outlines of ranges where Bear Lodge lay.

“We will take long trips on horseback as soon as you learn how to ride well, and can stand the saddles,” Jean told them. “Father said he would give us a few days of camping before it was time to go back, and it is much better to ride than to take the wagons or surrey.”

“Indeed we will ride just as soon as we are allowed to,” declared Polly, fervently. “I wouldn’t dare to go back home, unless I could ride, after all the nice things that grandfather said about you, Miss Jean. It will be the first thing he asks me, I’m sure—whether I can ride or not.”

“It won’t take very long. The ponies are all well broken, and used to the youngsters riding them. Peggie is in the saddle half the time in the summer, between here and Mrs. Sandy’s, and up with the boys and father on the sheep range.”

There was the flash of a moving lantern down at the corral. They could hear Don whistling as he moved around, looking after the ponies. From some place up in the hills there came a strange, appealing cry at intervals. Isabel stopped to listen.

“Is it a wild animal, Miss Murray?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Why, Isabel, I’m surprised. Don’t you know a mountain lion when you hear one?” Ted exclaimed, reproachfully.

“It’s only a hoot owl, Isabel,” Jean said, merrily. “There’s nothing to hurt you at all up here, unless you go farther West. There used to be a great deal of game, but they have gone farther West towards the mountains, and into the national reserve. We hardly ever see anything here except a stray bobcat, or a deer. Even the brown bears keep away unless they are hungry.”

“B-r-r-r-r,” shivered Isabel. “Don’t let’s talk any more about them. There might be a hungry one around some place.”

“If you like, I will sleep down here with you,” Jean said, when they came to the two-room log cabin, “but it is truly safe, girls. You can shut the door, and drop this bar across it. See?” She set the light down on the floor, and showed them how to fasten the door with a broad bar of wood, “just like the pictures of Davy Crockett keeping out the wolves,” as Polly said.

“And when they broke the bar, he put his own arm through and kept them out. We’ll take turns being the bars if we have to, Miss Murray.”

“Then good-night all, and sleep well, and be sure and remember what you dream. Dreams in a new place are sure to come true, they say.” Jean kissed each sweet, upturned, girlish face, and went back to the house.

“Well, girls!” exclaimed Polly, once they were alone. She raised the lamp from the table, and looked about.

The cabin consisted of two long, low ceiled rooms, and yet, no ceilings of plaster, but only the natural wood for an interior; and soft and rich in tone it looked too. The foundation of the cabin was of rocks, and the roof projected far over in front, forming the top of the porch. Over-shadowing it were some spruces. So much they had seen as they had entered it. But the interior was best of all. There was a huge rock fireplace, screened with great spruce boughs. Above it was a hanging shelf of wood. Before each of the four windows was a rough wooden seat, covered over with Indian blankets, and on the floor were a few rugs.

“Girls, what a fine idea this is,” exclaimed Sue, standing where she could take in the whole interior. “Do you know this furniture is mostly homemade of just rough, barked wood. Look at this lovely big center table, and the chairs to match.”

“Maybe this is the first wedding outfit,” Polly suggested. “Wasn’t it Daniel Boone who set the style in honeymoon settler furniture?”

“How, Polly?” asked Ruth.

“He just went out and took the wood as he found it, and made furniture out of it, that’s all, and put pelts around for rugs. How pungent and sweet those spruce boughs do smell. Ruth, you be monitor of the light, won’t you, please, dear? I’m going to bed this minute. I just can’t keep awake. Do you feel the motion of the train even now? I do. Just as if we were going and going all the time.”

So Ruth put out the lamp, and they all went to bed, tired from the long journey overland, and happy in their new quarters.

“It is just as if we were real settlers, and had finally reached a resting place,” Isabel said sleepily.

“I wish that hoot owl would turn settler, and find his resting place,” grumbled Ted. “He sounds so awfully lost.”

But almost as she said it, she drifted away to dreamland, and the first night in Wyoming had begun.