The three ranch girls had their set of apartments toward the front of the house on the second floor at Primrose Hall, so in order for Olive to reach her room it was necessary that she should pass along a long corridor into which various other apartments opened. She was not interested in anything but the one thought of finding Frieda and Jean, and yet, hurrying by an open door, she was obliged to overhear a conversation between two girls who were talking in rather loud tones.

“I don’t care, Winifred Graham, whether you like it or not,” one of the voices asserted, “but I certainly intend to be as nice to these new Western girls as I know how. They are strangers and I think it horrid to try to snub them just because you think perhaps they are not so rich and fashionable as the rest of the Primrose girls. I suppose you will try to turn as many of the other Juniors against them as you can twist around your finger, but kindly don’t include me in your list. Perhaps you think I don’t know why you have had me for one of your chums for so long. Goodness, child, I am not so foolish as I look; it is because I am homely as a mud fence, so when I’m around you’re more the stately beauty than ever in contrast with poor little me. But maybe you won’t always be thought the prettiest girl in the school, for this queer looking Olive, what’s her name, is as good looking as you are in an odd, foreign way, and the brown-eyed one named Jean Bruce goes you a close second. If you are angry with me, why you need not have me for a roommate, for I am going this very second to call on the new ranch girls and welcome them to Primrose Hall.” And with a flounce the same short-haired girl who had stopped to tease Olive earlier that morning, now ran along the hall after her, slipping her arm through hers in the friendliest of fashions. “Please’m, may I come and make you a call?” she inquired, “for I have been several years at Primrose Hall and know the place like an old shoe. Besides, I think that you and the older one of your sisters or friends, I can’t guess your relation, must be going to be in our Junior class, and I tell you we Juniors have to stick close together these days.”

By this time the two girls had arrived before Olive’s door, but hearing queer noises in another room, they followed the sounds, discovering Jean and Frieda in the adjoining chamber, which was to be the ranch girls’ sitting room. An immediate introduction was difficult because both Jean and Frieda were apparently standing on their heads inside the trunk of their Indian curios. They were not alone, for two sisters, Mollie and Lucy Johnson, from across the hall, had come in to lend them hammer and nails and were now watching them with deep absorption.

“Jean, Frieda,” Olive exclaimed, “this is—” and then she stopped in some confusion, remembering that she had not yet heard their new friend’s name.

The two ranch girls came forth from the trunk in time to see their new visitor smiling at them. “I am Geraldine Ferrows, at your service,” she explained, “but I’m better known to the world as Gerry. See I have brought your Olive safe back from the lion’s den and, as she is no more eaten up than was the prophet Daniel, why it proves that she’s a saint to start with. I wonder if you would care to have me tell you about Primrose Hall and what we are expected to do and what not to do?”

Olive, Frieda and Mollie and Lucy Johnson nodded thankfully, but Jean closed her lips and hardly appeared to have heard the question. She was not accustomed to feeling out of things as she had this morning and was not sure she cared to have strangers making an effort to be kind. Suppose this Geraldine Ferrows was one of the old students and said to be one of the cleverest if not the cleverest of the girls, well even that gave her no right to be patronizing to them!

But Gerry, apparently not observing Jean’s unfriendliness and having already taken a fancy to her, as strangers usually did, now seated herself cross-legged on the floor, beckoning to the others to follow suit. “All Gaul, my children, is divided into three parts, as we learn in our Latin book,” she said gayly, “but Primrose Hall, I regret to say, is divided into only two parts, the girls Winifred Graham likes and the girls she docs not. I used to belong to the first class, but now I probably belong to the second. I was kind of in love with Winifred last year and let her boss me around, but during the summer I thought things over and decided to strike. When she was so horrid to a stranger this morning it seemed to me the time was ripe. She won’t care a snap about my desertion, for she never cares for people unless they are rich and I’m not a bit, only my father is a famous surgeon in New York and I’m going to be a doctor myself some day, since I’m too homely for any kind gentleman to marry. I suppose it is because Winifred thought you girls didn’t look rich that—” And instantly Gerry bit her lively tongue, pretending not to be able to say anything more, although Jean was gazing at her in a more encouraging fashion than she had worn at the beginning of her speech.

All the way across the continent from Wyoming to New York City the four ranch girls, Ruth, and their English friend, Frank Kent, had discussed this question: Should the girls on arriving at boarding school speak of their new-found gold mine to their new acquaintances? Ruth and Jack advised against it, Olive had no pronounced opinion, Frieda and Frank thought they might as well mention it now and then, while Jean was determined to speak of their gold mine whenever the chance offered and to make the biggest impression she possibly could. So now it was surprising to hear Jean say with a slight flush in the healthy pallor of her clear skin: “No, we wouldn’t wish any one at Primrose Hall to care for us because of our wealth—or lack of it,” she answered demurely; “so I am afraid Miss Graham and her friends will not like us any too well. You see, we are simply ranch girls and will have to stand or fall by that. I suppose this Miss Graham decided that we were poor because our clothes are so simple and we haven’t thirteen trunks apiece as most of the girls here have. Olive and I were laughing yesterday because on our arrival we were given United States lock boxes for our jewels. Jewels! why we haven’t any except a few trinkets and two or three keepsakes that belong to Olive!” And Jean frowned and shook her head warningly at Frieda, whose eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and whose lips were about to form the name of the Rainbow Mine. Jumping up in order to divert her attention, Jean ran across to their trunk of Indian relics and diving down into it again, came forth with three pretty Indian baskets. “Won’t each one of you take one of these baskets to remind you that you were our first callers at Primrose Hall and we hope our first friends,” she said prettily, handing a basket to Gerry and then the others to the two sisters. But all the while Jean was talking and acting this little pantomime, inside of her something kept repeating: “Jack was right and we don’t want to be liked for our money. We will find out who the really nice girls are at Primrose Hall and then—” Well, it was comfortable to recall that in Jim’s last letter, written after they had left the ranch, he had said the pot of gold from the end of their Rainbow Mine had yielded five thousand dollars within the month just past and that there appeared to be plenty more gold where that had come from.

Suddenly a great bell sounded close by and five girls started with surprise, only Geraldine Ferrows remaining perfectly calm. Getting up from the floor, however, she stuck her Indian basket on her head for a hat, using the handle as a strap.

“Tidy your hair, young women, and come along over to the recitation hall. That was not an alarm of fire that just sounded, only a gentle reminder that we are to assemble within the next ten minutes to meet our teachers and to get ready our schedules of work for the next quarter. I can only hope that all of you are as wise as you are beautiful, for Primrose Hall is no cinch.” Gerry was marching out of the room to the tune of “Tommy Atkins,” when Jean called after her: “You were awfully good to come in to see us and we are obliged to you, so please help us out whenever you can. I am afraid that the things we know, such as riding bareback and raising cattle and shooting straight, won’t be considered accomplishments at boarding school.” And Jean looked unusually humble and particularly pretty.

Gerry laughed. “Don’t worry, we are none too learned ourselves at Primrose Hall, for we keep all varieties of insects here, butterflies as well as bookworms. But I will say for Miss Winthrop, that though this is a fashionable school, she does try to make us mind our Q’s as well as our P’s.”

Frieda was never born to understand a joke. “Please, what does it mean ‘To mind our P’s and Q’s?’” she inquired solemnly.

“Oh, P’s stand for parties and politeness and primping and how to enter a room and what to say when you get there and all the things that mean Society with a big S, Miss Frieda Ralston,” Gerry returned. “But Q’s, Q’s are dreadful things called Quizzes, and you will pretty soon find out what quizzing means, particularly if you happen to be in the mathematics class taught by the female who rejoices in the delicious name of Miss Rebecca Sterne. But really, Frieda, if you want to know the truth about the meaning of the old expression, ‘mind your P’s and Q’s,’ the Century Dictionary tells us that the expression alluded to the difficulty in the early days of discerning the difference between the two letters.” And with this last bit of wisdom and a shake of her curly head, Gerry really vanished from the ranch girls’ room.