ow, I'm
counting on a good time at Emory, and on bringing your sister and mine
up here to see you."

"It will be just lovely," said Mrs. Hal, with a woman's natural but
unspoken comparison between the simplicity of her ranch toilet and the
probable elegancies of the young ladies' Eastern costumes. "They'll find
us very primitive up here in the mountains, I'm afraid; but if they like
scenery and horseback riding and fishing there's nothing like it."

"Oh, they're coming sure. Jessie's letters tell me that's one of the big
treats Mr. Folsom has promised them. Just think, they should be along
this week, and I shall be stationed so near them at Emory--of all places
in the world."

"How long is it since you have seen Elinor--'Pappoose,' as your sister
calls her," asked Mrs. Hal, following the train of womanly thought then
drifting through her head, as she set before her visitor a brimming
goblet of buttermilk.

"Two years. She was at the Point a day or two the summer of our
graduation," he answered carelessly. "A real little Indian girl she was,
too, so dark and shy and silent, yet I heard Professor M----'s daughters
and others speak of her later; she pleased them so much, and Jessie
thinks there's no girl like her."

"And you haven't seen her since--not even her picture?" asked Mrs. Hal,
rising from her easy-chair. "Just let me show you the one she sent Hal
last week. I think there's a surprise in store for you, young man," was
her mental addition, as she tripped within doors.

The nurse girl, a half-breed, one of the numerous progeny of the French
trappers and explorers who had married among the Sioux, was hushing the
burly little son and heir to sleep in his Indian cradle, crooning some
song about the fireflies and and Heecha, the big-eyed owl, and the
mother stooped to press her lips upon the rounded cheek and to flick
away a tear-drop, for Hal 2d had roared lustily when ordered to his
noonday nap. Away to the northward the heavily wooded heights seemed
tipped by fleecy, summer clouds, and off to the northeast Laramie Peak
thrust his dense crop of pine and scrub oak above the mass of snowy
vapor that floated lazily across that grim-visaged southward scarp. The
drowsy hum of insects, the plash of cool, running waters fell softly on
the ear. Under the shade of willow and cottonwood cattle and horses were
lazily switching at the swarm of gnats and flies or dozing through the
heated hours of the day. Out on the level