arted a
stately dance. They flapped their wings, they twisted their long necks,
they fanned their short tails and made strange signs to one another.
They hopped together to a given spot and then hopped back again, never
for a single moment losing their solemn dignity.

Ruth held in as long as she could. But really this dance of the
sand-hill cranes was the funniest sight she had ever seen in her life!
She laughed silently, until the tears ran down her cheeks, her glasses
slid off her nose and she forgot she had ever thought of being
homesick. Frieda chuckled softly at first. But finally Jean and Olive
joined in, and the secret audience burst into a roar.

The leader of the cranes cast a shocked, horrified glance behind him,
clacked a signal to his followers and the birds rose together in flight.

Olive ran out into the field and a long, light brown feather fluttering
downward from the last bird in the flock, rested for a second in her
black hair. Frieda skipped toward her. "Give the feather to me, Olive,"
Frieda begged. "It is exactly what I want to trim my doll's hat."

But Olive made no answer, and when she joined Ruth and Jean she looked a
little pale.

"What's the trouble, Olive?" Jean asked. "You look so funny, just like
you were frightened over something."

Olive shook her head. "Oh, I know I am silly," she explained, "and I
don't really believe in it. But there is an old Indian legend, that when
a bird drops a feather at your feet, it is to give you a warning of
approaching danger. There is an Indian story of a young chief who was on
his way to war. Three times an eagle cast down a feather before him.
The chief knew what the signal meant, but he went on into battle just
the same. Of course he and his men were killed!"

Jack was waiting at the ranch house when the girls returned. She tried
to stifle the pang of jealousy she felt when Frieda clung to her new
cousin, instead of racing to her in her usual fashion.

Jack and Ruth shook hands politely. Each one of them tried to be as
friendly as possible to the other. But to save their lives they could
not get rid of their first feeling of antagonism.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK.

"THERE is not the least harm in it, Cousin Ruth. It is only that you
don't understand our Western customs," Jack announced sweetly.

She was standing in front of the living-room fire with her hands clasped
behind her. Her head was up in the air, showing the fir