nd rounded up my crowd.

We passed old King in a body, and he growled something I could not hear;
one of the boys told me, afterward, that it was just as well I didn't. We
rode away under the stars, and I wished that night had been four times as
long, and that Beryl King would be as nice to me as was Edith Loroman.

CHAPTER VII.

One Day Too Late!

I suppose there is always a time when a fellow passes quite suddenly out
of the cub-stage and feels himself a man--or, at least, a very great
desire to be one. Until that Fourth of July life had been to me a
playground, with an interruption or two to the game. When dad took such
heroic measures to instil some sense into my head, he interrupted the game
for ten days or so--and then I went back to my play, satisfied with new
toys. At least, that is the way it seemed to me. But after that night,
things were somehow different. I wanted to amount to something; I was
absolutely ashamed of my general uselessness, and I came near writing to
dad and telling him so.

The worst of it was that I didn't know just what it was I wanted to do,
except ride over to that little pinnacle just out from King's Highway, and
watch for Beryl King; that, of course, was out of the question, and
maudlin, anyway.

On the third day after, as Frosty and I were riding circle quite silently
and moodily together, we rode up into a little coulee on the southwestern
side of White Divide, and came quite unexpectedly upon a little
picnic-party camped comfortably down by the spring where we had meant to
slake our own thirst. Of course, it was the Kings' house-party; they were
the only luxuriously idle crowd in the country.

Edith and her mother greeted me with much apparent joy, but, really,
I felt sorry for Frosty; all that saved him from recognition then was the
providential near-sightedness of Mrs. Loroman. I observed that he was
careful not to come close enough to the lady to run any risk.

Aunt Lodema tilted her chin at me, and Beryl--to tell the truth,
I couldn't make up my mind about Beryl. When I first rode up to them, and
she looked at me, I fancied there was a welcome in her eyes; after that
there was anything else you like to name. I looked several times at her
to make sure, but I couldn't tell any more what she was thinking than one
can read the face of a Chinaman. (That isn't a pretty comparison, I know,
but it gives my meaning, for, of all humans, Chinks are about the hardest
to unde