rangers are in the employ of the United States Government, and this
garden is mine," she stated evenly. "How could I take a Government
employee to work on my property?"

"But surely Mr. Thorne--"

"Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted, as something
that happens on well-regulated tables."

She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up through the
trees. "He ought to be along soon now. I hope so; my biscuits are just
on the brown." She turned to Bob, her eyes dancing: "Now comes the
exciting moment of the day, the great gamble! Will he come alone, or
will he bring a half-dozen with him? I am always ready for the
half-dozen, and as a consequence we live in a grand, ingenious debauch
of warmed-ups and next-days. You don't know what good practice it is;
nor what fun! I've often thought I could teach those cooks of Marc
Antony's something--you remember, don't you, they used to keep six
dinners going all at different stages of preparation because they never
knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness might choose to dine. Or
perhaps you don't know? Football men don't have to study, do they?"

"What makes you think I'm a football man?" grinned Bob; "generally
bovine expression?"

"Not know the great Bob Orde!" cried the girl. "Why, not one of us but
had your picture, generally in a nice gilt shrine, but _always_ with
violets before it."

But on this ground Bob was sure.

"You have been reading a ten-cent magazine," he admonished her gravely.
"It is unwise to take your knowledge of the customs in girls' colleges
from such sources."

From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust. Miss Thorne
appraised it carefully.

"Warmed-overs to-night," she pronounced. "There's no more than two of
them."

The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately verified by the
appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne and California John
dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance removed among the
azaleas, and came up afoot. The younger man had dropped all his dry,
official precision, his incisive abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the
high, laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat
and gay neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of
out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm, he seemed
a different individual.

"Hullo! Hullo!" he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew nearer; "I
couldn't bring you much company to-day, Amy. But I s