ust as ignorant as a girl brought up in such an environment would
be. Jane Ann has been reading novels, perhaps. As the Eastern youth
used to fill up on cheap stories of the Far West, and start for that
wild and woolly section with the intention of wiping from the face of
Nature the last remnant of the Red Tribes, so it may be that Jane Ann
Hicks has read of the Eastern millionaire and has started for the
Atlantic seaboard for the purpose of lassoing one--or more--of those
elusive creatures.

"However, Old Bill wants Jane Ann to come home. Silver Ranch will
be hers some day, when Old Bill passes over the Great Divide, and he
believes that if she is to be Montana's coming Cattle Queen his niece
would better not know too much about the effete East."

And in this style the newspaper writer had spread before his readers
a semi-humorous account (perhaps fictitious) of the daily life of the
missing heiress of Silver Ranch, her rides over the prairies and hills on
half-wild ponies, the round-ups, calf-brandings, horse-breakings, and
all other activities supposed to be part and parcel of ranch life.

"My goodness me!" gasped Ruth, when she had hastily scanned all this,
"do you suppose that any sane girl would have run away from all that
for just a foolish whim?"

"Just what I say," returned Tom. "Cracky! wouldn't it be great to
ride over that range, and help herd the cattle, and trail wild horses,
and--and----"

"Well, that's just what one girl got sick of, it seems," finished
Ruth, her eyes dancing. "Now! whether this same girl is the one we
know----"

"I bet she is," declared Tom.

"Betting isn't proof, you know," returned Ruth, demurely.

"No. But Jane Ann Hicks is this young lady who wants to be called
'Nita'--Oh, glory! what a name!"

"If it is so," Ruth rejoined, slowly, "I don't so much wonder that
she wanted a fancy name. 'Jane Ann Hicks'! It sounds ugly; but an ugly
name can stand for a truly beautiful character."

"That fact doesn't appeal to this runaway girl, I guess," said Tom.
"But the question is: What shall we do about it?"

"I don't know as we can do anything about it," Ruth said, slowly. "Of
course we don't know that this Hicks girl and Nita are the same."

"What was Crab showing her the paper for?"

"What can Crab have to do with it, anyway?" returned Ruth, although she
had not forgotten the interest the assistant lighthouse keeper had shown
in Nita from the first.

"Don't know. But if he re