t who had always done everything for them, and he and his
sister were supposed to be her only heirs. It wasn't very probable that
Aunt Agatha would lose all her fortune or go back on them.

Donald bent to kiss his mother good night. "For goodness' sake, let's
don't worry over this scheme of father's until we know it is going to
amount to something," he argued. "We do want to have a good time on this
trip--the ranch girls are simply great!"

While all this was transpiring, Ruth and Jim Colter were rowing along
the northern border of Yellowstone Lake toward a small island known as
Pelican Roost. Earlier in the afternoon, on seeing a number of the
pelicans floating like a fleet of boats on the face of the water, Ruth
had idly suggested that she would like to see them at night, as they
must look, roosting on their island, like wicked old ghosts. And Jim had
planned then to bring Ruth out for a moonlight row alone.

When he returned to find Ruth waiting on the verandah for him, he had
made no explanation of his long absence and, as his face was unusually
serious, Ruth had asked no questions. In the hour of his absence the
face of the world had changed for Jim Colter! Before going to the hotel
clerk for the letters that had been sent him from the Rainbow Ranch, Jim
had made up his mind to tell Ruth he loved her to-night, and to try to
make her love him in return. The weeks of the caravan trip had ended a
fight with himself. Jim had finally decided that a man's past need have
nothing more to do with him than an old garment that has been cast aside
forever. He would tell Ruth he cared for her and they would begin a new
life together. But this was his idea before reading the letters from the
Rainbow Ranch.

Jim now rowed on in complete silence, while Ruth idly wondered when he
was going to make up his mind to talk and what special thing he could
wish to tell her alone. As Jim always took a long time to put his
thoughts into words she felt no impatience.

"I had a letter from that Harmon man," Jim remarked abruptly. It was so
different a speech from anything she expected him to say that Ruth felt
irritated. Wasn't it rather stupid for Jim to have brought her out alone
on the lake in the moonlight to talk of the Harmons?

"Did you?" she returned indifferently, slipping her white fingers in the
water to see if she could touch one of the yellow water lilies that
floated near.

Jim heaved a sigh so deep that Ruth laughed. "I n