icolet coming this way. She won't approve of my talking with
'a strange young man' so long," laughed Ruth. "You let me know every few
days where you are, Jerry?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will. And thank you kindly."

"You aren't out of funds? You have money?"

"I've got quite a little store," said Jerry, smiling. "Thanks to that nice
black-eyed girl that I helped out of the car window."

"Oh! Ann Hicks. And she's being made much of, now, by the girls, because
she knew how to fling a rope," cried Ruth, looking across the picnic
ground to where her schoolmates were grouped.

"She's all right," said Jerry, enthusiastically. "They ought to be proud
of her--them that was in that boat."

"It will break the ice for Ann," declared Ruth. "I am so glad. Now, I must
run. Don't forget to write, Jerry. Good bye."

She gave him her hand and ran back to join her school friends. Ann had
gone about putting up the children's swing and at first had paid little
attention to the enthusiasm of the girls who had been saved from going
over the dam. But she could not ignore them altogether.

"You're just the smartest girl I ever saw," Heavy declaimed. "We'd all be
in the water, sure enough, if you hadn't got that rope to us. Come on,
Ann! Be a sport. _Do_ wear your laurels kindly."

"I'm just as 'dumb' about books as ever. Flinging that rope didn't make
any difference," growled the western girl.

"I don't care if you don't know your 'A.B., abs,'" cried one of the girls
who had taken a prominent part in the dunce cap trick. "You make me
awfully ashamed of myself for being so mean to you. Please forgive us all,
Ann--that's a good girl."

Ann was awkward about accepting their apologies; and yet she was not
naturally a bad-tempered girl. She was just different from them all--and
felt the difference so keenly!

This sudden reversal of feeling, and their evident offer of friendliness,
made her feel more awkward than ever. She remained very glum while at the
picnic grounds.

But, as Ruth had said, the incident served to break the ice. Ann had
gotten her start. Somebody beside the "primes" gave her "the glad hand and
the smiling eye." Briarwood began to be a different sort of place for the
ranch girl.

There were plenty of the juniors who looked down on her still; but she had
"shown them" once that she could do something the ordinary eastern girl
could not do and Ann was on the _qui vive_ for another chance to "make
good" along her own particul