llin' _her_!" suggested Randerson.

"You tell her anything _you_ want to tell her, my boy," whispered Uncle
Jepson. "An' if I don't miss my reckonin', she'll _listen_ to you, some
day."

CHAPTER XV

THE RUNAWAY COMES HOME

Masten's note to Ruth contained merely the information that he was going
to Lazette, and that possibly he might not return for two weeks. He
hinted that he would probably be called upon to go to Santa Fe on
business, but if so he would apprise her of that by messenger. He gave no
reason for his sudden leave-taking, or no explanation of his breach of
courtesy in not waiting to see her personally. The tone of the note did
not please Ruth. It had evidently been written hurriedly, on a sheet of
paper torn from a pocket notebook. That night she studied it long, by the
light from the kerosene lamp in her room, and finally crumpled it up and
threw it from her. Then she sat for another long interval, her elbows on
the top of the little stand that she used as a dressing table, her chin
in her hands, staring with unseeing eyes into a mirror in front of
her--or rather, at two faces that seemed to be reflected in the glass:
Masten's and Randerson's.

Next morning she got downstairs late, to find breakfast over and
Randerson gone. Later in the morning she saw Uncle Jepson waving a hand
to her from the corral, and she ran down there, to find her pony standing
outside the fence, meek and docile. The bridle rein, knotted and broken,
dangled in the dust at his head.

She took up the end with the knot in it.

"He's been tied!" she exclaimed. She showed Uncle Jepson the slip knot.
And then she became aware of Aunt Martha standing beside her, and she
showed it to her also. And then she saw a soiled blue neckerchief twisted
and curled in the knot, and she examined it with wide eyes.

"Why, it's Randerson's!" she declared, in astonishment. "How on earth did
it get here?"

And now her face crimsoned, for illumination had come to her. She placed
the neckerchief behind her, with a quick hope that her relatives had not
seen it, nor had paid any attention to her exclamation. But she saw Uncle
Jepson grin broadly, and her face grew redder with his words:

"I cal'late the man who lost that blue bandanna wasn't a tol'able piece
away when that knot was tied."

"Jep Coakley, you mind your own business!" rebuked Aunt Martha sharply,
looking severely at Uncle