e a thousand?"

Anita laughed. "No, senorita," she said. "Only seventeen! And you will
see them every morning just the same. They always make this noise. They
are being fed; and there is only a very little meat for so many. Jim
keeps them hungry all the time, so they will hunt better."

"Hunt!" cried Rea.

"Yes," said Anita. "That is what we keep them for, to hunt the gophers
and rabbits and moles. They are clearing them out fast. Jim says by
another spring there won't be a gopher on the place."

[Illustration: THE CHINAMAN, AH FOO, FEEDING THE CATS--Page 70.]

Before she had finished speaking, Rea was downstairs and out on the east
veranda. At the kitchen door stood a Chinaman, throwing bits of meat to
the scrambling seventeen cats,--black, white, tortoise-shell, gray,
maltese, yellow, every color, size, shape of cat that was ever seen.
And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked
like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a
dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow,
miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was
a bedlam.

Jusy had laughed till the tears ran out of his eyes; and Ah Foo (that
was the Chinaman's name) was laughing almost as hard, just to see Jusy
laugh. The cats were an old story to Ah Foo; he had got over laughing at
them long ago.

Ah Foo was the cook's brother. While Jim had been away, Ah Foo had
waited at table, and done all the housework except the cooking. The
cook's name was Wang Hi. He was old; but Ah Foo was young, not more than
twenty. He did not like to work in the house, and he was glad Jim had
got home, so he could go to working out of doors again. He was very
glad, too, to see the children; and he had spoken so pleasantly to Jusy,
that in one minute Jusy had lost all his fear of Chinamen.

When Rea saw Ah Foo, she hung back, and was afraid to go nearer.

"Oh, come on! come on!" shouted Jusy. "Don't be afraid! He is just like
Jim, only a different color. They have men of all kinds of colors here
in America. They are just like other people, all but the color. Come
on, Rea. Don't be silly. You can't half see from there!"

But Rea was afraid. She would not come farther than the last pillar of
the veranda. "I can see very well here," she said; and there she stood
clinging to the pillar. She was half afraid of the cats, too, besides
being very much afraid of the Chinaman.

Th