ork, where I wrote to her
frequently and kindly, urging her not to mind me but to stay as
long as she liked.

Meanwhile I came up to the ranch for a long holiday with Bess and
the baby, a holiday which had already stretched itself out to
Thanksgiving, and threatened to last until Christmas. People wrote
alluringly from town, but what had town to offer compared with a
saddle-horse to yourself, and a litter of collie pups to play with,
and a baby just learning to walk? I even began to consider
ranching as a career, and to picture myself striding over my broad
acres in top-boots and corduroys.

As to Aunt Jane, my state of mind was fatuously calm. She was
staying with cousins, who live in a suburb and are frightfully
respectable. I was sure they numbered no convicts among their
acquaintance, or indeed any one from whom Aunt Jane was likely to
require rescuing. And if it came to a retired missionary I was
perfectly willing.

But the cousins and their respectability are of the passive order,
whereas to manage Aunt Jane demands aggressive and continuous
action. Hence the bolt from the blue above alluded to.

I was swinging tranquilly in the hammock, I remember, when Bess
brought my letters and then hurried away because the baby had
fallen down-stairs. Unwarned by the slightest premonitory thrill,
I kept Aunt Jane's letter till the last and skimmed through all the
others. I should be thankful, I suppose, that the peace soon to be
so rudely shattered was prolonged for those few moments. I
recalled afterward, but dimly, as though a gulf of ages yawned
between, that I had been quite interested in six pages of prattle
about the Patterson dance.

At last I came to Aunt Jane. I ripped open the envelope and drew
out the letter--a fat one, but then Aunt Jane's letters are always
fat. She says herself that she is of those whose souls flow freely
forth in ink but are frozen by the cold eye of an unsympathetic
listener. Nevertheless, as I spread out the close-filled pages I
felt a mild wonder. Writing so large, so black, so staggering, so
madly underlined, must indicate something above, even Aunt Jane's
usual emotional level. Perhaps in sober truth there _was_ a
missionary-experiment to "Find Capital after , or ;"
Twenty minutes later I staggered into Bess's room.

"Hush!" she said. "Don't wake the baby!"

"Baby or no baby," I whispered savagely, "I've got to have a
time-table. I leave for the city tonight to c