ediately behind them. "She had better stayed at home, I should
think."

Ruth flushed angrily, but before she could speak, Nita said, looking
coolly at The Fox:

"You're a might snappy, snarly sort of a girl; ain't you? And you
think you are dreadfully smart. But somebody told you that. It ain't
so. I've seen a whole lot smarter than you. You wouldn't last long
among the boys where _I_ come from."

"Thank you!" replied Mary, her head in the air. "I wouldn't care to
be liked by the boys. It isn't ladylike to think of the boys all the
time----"

"These are grown men, I mean," said Nita, coolly. "The punchers that
work for--well, just cow punchers. You call them cowboys. They know
what's good and fine, jest as well as Eastern folks. And a girl that
talks like you do about a cripple wouldn't go far with them."

"I suppose your friend, the half-Indian, is a critic of deportment,"
said The Fox, with a laugh.

"Well, Jib wouldn't say anything mean about a cripple," said Nita,
in her slow way, and The Fox seemed to have no reply.

But this little by-play drew Ruth Fielding closer to the queer girl who
had selected her "hifaluting" name because it was the name of a girl
in a paper-covered novel.

Nita had lived out of doors, that was plain. Ruth believed, from what
the runaway had said, that she came from the plains of the great West.
She had lived on a ranch. Perhaps her folks owned a ranch, and they might
even now be searching the land over for their daughter. The thought made
the girl from the Red Mill very serious, and she determined to try and
gain Nita's confidence and influence her, if she could, to tell the
truth about herself and to go back to her home. She knew that she could
get Mr. Cameron to advance Nita's fare to the West, if the girl would
return.

But up on the gallery in front of the shining lantern of the lighthouse
there was no chance to talk seriously to the runaway. Heavy had to sit
down when she reached this place, and she declared that she puffed
like a steam engine. Then, when she had recovered her breath, she pointed
out the places of interest to be seen from the tower--the smoke of
Westhampton to the north; Fuller's Island, with its white sands and
gleaming green lawns and clumps of wind-blown trees; the long strip of
winding coast southward, like a ribbon laid down for the sea to wash,
and far, far to the east, over the tumbling waves, still boisterous with
the swell of last night's storm, t