ed suit for damages against Mr. Norton, but the claim had not yet
been settled.

Ruth and Jean crossed some stepping-stones to the wooded side of the
stream and had walked only a short distance beyond, when Ruth spied a
gleam of color a little farther on. It was Frieda, who wore a red Tam, a
red sweater and her long blonde plaits tied with red ribbons. She was
sitting on the stump of an old tree sewing some bits of ribbon together
as calmly as though she had been in a little rocking-chair by the fire.
She looked so like a little German maedchen, though she was so far away
from the _Vaterland_, that Ruth wanted to laugh aloud.

"Frieda!" called an unfamiliar voice.

Frieda glanced quickly up. She was making a pincushion for their new
cousin and had not had time to finish, but hoped to be through with it
before Olive landed her fish.

The bits of silk ribbon fluttered to the ground as Frieda caught sight
of a stranger not much larger than Jean. She had her arms outstretched
and such an eager look in her nearsighted eyes that Frieda flew straight
to her.

"I am awfully glad to see you, I am really," Frieda announced, giving
her new cousin an old-fashioned hug. "There are such a lot of things I
want you to show me that Jack and Jean and Olive don't know a single
thing about. And I am sure I shall like you in spite of what--" But a
warning look from Jean cut short Frieda's confidences.

"Where is Olive?" Jean asked quickly.

"She is not very far away," Frieda answered, "but you must walk softly
or you will frighten the fish."

Cousin Ruth tiptoed as softly as Frieda could wish. She was curious to
see this new ranch girl whom Jack had written her about, and she would
have been sorry to have missed her first vision of Olive.

Olive hung out over the water, where the creek deepened into a small
pool, under the branches of a scrub pine tree. One slender arm clung to
a limb of the young tree as she looked down into the muddy water in the
shadow of the evergreen boughs. Ruth had a quick and vivid impression of
her glossy black hair; her delicate figure, with its peculiar woodland
grace, clothed in an old green dress the color of the autumn grass, and
caught her breath in wonder. The girl looked like a dryad who had stolen
out of the heart of a tree to catch an image of herself in the water.

"Olive, don't fall in the creek," Jean called out gaily. "Come and be
introduced to Cousin Ruth; she would rather see you than hav