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Rh have sailed over there to the Thimble," declared Tom.

The Western girl had been thinking seriously; now she seized her uncle by the arm. "I tell you what I want, Uncle Bill!" she cried.

"Something beside the pianner and the shift-on hat?" he grumbled, but his blue eyes twinkled.

"Those things don't count," she declared earnestly. "But this five hundred dollars, Uncle Bill, you haven't got to pay that Crab man. So you just spend it by taking all these girls and boys that have been so nice to me out to Silver Ranch. They think it must be the finest place that ever happened—and I don't know but 'tis, Uncle, if you don't have too much of it," she added.

"Great cats! that would shore be some doin's; wouldn't it?" exclaimed the cattleman, grinning broadly.

"You bet it would! We'll take Ruth and Helen and Tom and Heavy an—why, every last one of 'em that'll go. We'll show 'em a right good time; is it a go, Uncle Bill?"

And it certainly was "a go," for we shall meet Ruth and her friends next in a volume entitled, "Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys."

Old Bill Hicks' hearty invitation could not be accepted, however, until the various young folks had written home to their parents and guardians