Page:Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch.djvu/142

132 "Surest thing you know, Nita!"

"Not to that boarding school you girls all go to?"

"Unless he backs down—and you know Mr. Bill Hicks isn't one of the backing-down kind."

"Oh, bully for you!" gasped Jane Ann. "I know it's your doing. I can see it all. Uncle Bill thinks the sun just about rises and sets with you."

"Helen and Heavy did their share. So did Madge—and even Heavy's aunt, Miss Kate, before we started West. You will go to Briarwood with us next half, Nita. You'll have a private teacher for a while so that you can catch up with our classes. It's going to be up to you to make good, young lady—that's all."

Jane Ann Hicks was too pleased at that moment to say a word—and she had to wink mighty hard to keep the tears back. Weeping was as much against her character as it would have been against a boy's. And she was silent thereafter for most of the way to the camp.

They rode over a rolling bit of ground and came in sight suddenly of the great herd in care of Number Two outfit. Such a crowd of slowly moving cattle was enough to amaze the eastern visitors. For miles upon miles the great herd overspread the valley, along the far side of which the hurrying river flowed. The tossing horns, the lowing of the cows calling their young, the