day off,
Sunday. Charlie Green is coming up to relieve me. And--couldn't we do
something?" She glanced wearily around the little office. "Honest, I'd
go crazy if I stayed here much longer without a play spell. I want to
get clear out, away from the thing--where I can't even hear a train
whistle."

"Then you shall come down to the ranch the minute you can get away,
and we'll do something or go somewhere. The boys said they'd take me
fishing--but they only propose things so they can play jokes on me,
it seems to me. They'd make me fall in the river, or something, I just
know. But if you'd like to go along, there'd be two of us--"

"Chicken, we'll go. I ought to be ashamed to fish for an invitation the
way I did, but I'm not. I haven't been down to the Hart ranch yet; and
I've heard enough about it to drive me crazy with the desire to see it.
Your Aunt Phoebe I've met, and fallen in love with--that's a matter of
course. She told me to visit her just any time, without waiting to be
invited especially. Isn't she the dearest thing? Oh! that's a train
order, I suppose--sixteen is about due. Excuse me, chicken."

She was busy then until the train came screeching down upon the station,
paused there while the conductor rushed in, got a thin slip of paper for
himself and the engineer, and rushed out again. When the train grumbled
away from the platform and went its way, it left man standing there, a
fish-basket slung from one shoulder, a trout rod carefully wrapped in
its case in his hand, a box which looked suspiciously like a case of
some bottled joy at his feet, and a loose-lipped smile upon his face.

"Howdy, Miss Georgie?" he called unctuously through the open door.

Miss Georgie barely glanced at him from under her lashes, and her
shoulders indulged themselves in an almost imperceptible twitch.

"How do you do, Mr. Baumberger?" she responded coolly, and very, very
gently pushed the door shut just as he had made up his mind to enter.

CHAPTER VIII. THE AMIABLE ANGLER

Baumberger--Johannes was the name he answered to when any of his family
called, though to the rest of the world he was simply Baumberger--was
what he himself called a true sport. Women, he maintained, were very
much like trout; and so, when this particular woman calmly turned
her back upon the smile cast at her, he did not linger there angling
uselessly, but betook himself to the store, where his worldly position,
rather than his charming personalit