uppose Uncle Justus and Aunt Elizabeth should find him and bring him
back. Edna's sympathies were divided. She knew her cousin would be
punished, and yet she knew the others would be troubled sorely if he
did not return.

She sat on the top step of the stairs, thinking, thinking harder than
ever before in her life. Louis had run away because he was unhappy. He
had not let his parents know for fear they would tell his aunt and
uncle to take measures to prevent it. But if they knew he had actually
started, they would realize, maybe, how miserable he had been and
would take his part. If she could only let them know. Why, she could,
of course she could. She could send a telegram. She knew she could.
There was a telegraph office down at the depot from which she had just
come. Perhaps she could get there and back before her aunt and uncle
returned, and no one would miss her.

Fired by this idea, she started out intent upon the business in hand.
She had little difficulty in finding the place, and went timidly up to
the desk.

She stood still, not knowing just what to do until the clerk, looking
up, said, "Well, little girl, what is it?"

"I want to send a telegram;" she answered.

"Where?" asked the man, pulling a blank toward him.

Edna carefully unfolded the letter from Louis. "Pasadena, California,"
she said.

"Name?" continued the man.

"Mr. William Morrison."

"Well, what is the message?"

Edna looked doubtfully at him.

"Have you forgotten it?" he asked.

"No, but I--but I--"

"Well, then, out with it." The man was a trifle impatient.

"I think I had just better say Louis has runned away."

The man looked at her a moment, and a smile came over his face. "O,
you are sending it yourself, are you?" he said.

Edna nodded.

"Do you want to pay for it, or shall it paid at the other end?"

Here was another dilemma; but Edna concluded that since the contents
of her little purse might not cover the expense, it would best be paid
for at Pasadena. Then having asked her name, the man told her it was
all right, and she left with a sense of relief.

She was making her way home again as fast as possible, when suddenly
she stood still with terror, for coming up the street, directly toward
her, was a herd of Texas cattle on their way to the stock yards.

If there was anything that Edna feared, it was these creatures; their
wide-spreading horns seemed to menace her even a block away, and as
the foremost one was