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Edith Bancroft

"Teekawata, come!" called the Indian.

JANE ALLEN: CENTER

By Edith Bancroft

Author of Jane Allen of the Sub-Team, Jane Allen: Right Guard, etc.

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

Akron, Ohio--New York

Copyright MCMXX

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

Jane Allen, Center

Made in the United States of America

CONTENTS

I--The Silver Lining

II--Telltale Tidings

III--Over the Hills and Far Away

IV--Woo Nah and the Fortunes

V--On Their Way

VI--Journey De Luxe

VII--Lost--a Girl

VIII--New York at Last

IX--Girls' Life a La Mode

X--Fears and Fancies

XI--A Strange Predicament

XII--Wellington En Masse

XIII--Stirring the Depths

XIV--Baffling Strategy

XV--Election Night

XVI--Politics Et Al

XVII--Potential Enemies

XVIII--The Woes of "Alias Helen"

XIX--Teams and Teamsters

XX--Stemming the Tide

XXI--The Two Jays

XXII--Jane Allen: Center

XXIII--The Barn Swifts--a Tragedy

XXIV--A Clue to the Mystery

XXV--To the Victors

XXVI--Angels Unawares

XXVII--What the "Bugle" Blew

XXVIII--Madam Nalasky

XXIX--The Boy Stanislaus

XXX--The Acorn and the Oak

CHAPTER I--THE SILVER LINING

Jolly round fleecy clouds tumbled over their playmates in the great, broad playfield of endless blue; baby cloudlets climbed to tops, only to slide down the other side, while haughty, majestic, dignified leaders paraded straight to the prairie line, taking on tones more sombre with each lap of earth left below. A shower should be marshalled, it had been promised the wheat fields, but those young sky rowdies never wanted to work, always romping and skylarking, allowing the silliest little breezes to blow them off their course.

The girl on the grass gazed up; in her gray eyes the steely glints quivered into sharp, silver blade-like flashes, reflected from the arrow of some little god just peeking from behind the cloud mountain. He warned her of the shower, he knew the parade would soon be formed into battle line, yet the girl saw only the sunshine still braving the cloud's attack.

"Just like one's fortune," she mused, "clouds and sunshine, pleasant here and a storm somewhere else. I wonder why we take things so seriously? I believe the greatest philosophy of life is moderation: and I am going to be very moderate with my little worries. The sunshine is only behind the cloud, and the reaction is always crowding the perplexities. I am not going to worry about going away this year."

The girl was retrospective. Vacation was almost over, and Jane Allen would soon leave the hills of El Capitan, her ranch home, to take up her Junior year at Wellington college. Fortified with the resolution against loneliness Jane would try to cover the thought of leaving her dear dad, and her Aunt Mary, with the anticipation of so much joy at the homecoming when the school term would end. A drop of rain fell into her eye with the precision of an eye dropper. She blinked, then jumped to her feet.

"Jan, Janie also Jeanie," she roused herself. "Do you want some woozy gnome to turn you into an old maid? Why the ruminating? In the words of Judy Stearns, why the Willies? Don't you want to go back to Wellington?" she asked herself.

A light sprinkle answered her. That shower would come in spite of the sun still showing blades of defiance. A rumble of thunder chased the flash from her eyes and the playful sky god ducked behind the black mountain. Jane stretched her arms unconsciously into gym rhythm, did a one, two, three and a couple of doubles, then straightened her lithe form, squared her shoulders, and made a quarter of a mile dash to the house. She tumbled into the cushions at Aunt Mary's feet just as the drops assumed the magnitude of splatter and splash.

"Auntie Mary," she panted, "did you notice it is raining?"

"Notice it? I behold it, Janie dear. I am glad you got back in time. These late summer showers often turn into good sizable storms. Where have you been?"

"Under my particular tree. I was telling my fortune in the sky when I espied a whole flock of clouds, that wanted to play with an earth maiden. They flirted outrageously, but I knew you would never consent to my taking up with sky-gods without being properly introduced. So I shook my head, and wig-wagged that they should send their cards to the astronomy class. Auntie, hast any mail?"

"Yes, dear. And one from Wellington."

"Oh, goody-good! It will tell us who won the scholarship. But look at that rain. I wonder if Firefly got to his shed? I must see."

"Janie, don't run in that downpour, Janie!" But the girl was off down the bridle path, waving her arms backward to signify how splendid the sheets of rain felt, tossing up her bronze head, determined to accept the full charge of the unequaled beauty bath in her joyous face. Oh! it was wonderful to be alive and at El Capitan!

"The dear," murmured her aunt, "and some folks think her willful. I have always noticed that her self will ran in the right direction. She didn't care to leave home for school, of course, but now she loves college life. Well, I do wonder if there is anything more beautiful in life than a glorious young girl."

Was Aunt Mary a little regretful? She had been a young girl once. She had been glorious too. Jane had inherited her own swirl of bronze hair from this self-same Aunt Mary, while the mother, a woman of rare beauty had given the daughter those metallic gray eyes. Their glints could be as soft as silver, or as flashy as steel, so, beautiful eyes, that were velvet in meekness were really metallic in their moody changes. Presently a gale of laughter announced Jane's return.

"Auntie," called the girl who was thus being eulogized, "I am bringing you a guest. Here is Uncle Todd, got caught in the storm, purposes to give you a jolly chat. Come on, Uncle. Aunt Mary wants to hear all about the auction over Lincoln way. They even sold the big tree, Aunt Mary."

On the arm of the young girl there came trudging along the tanbark path Uncle Todd; old, gray, tottering, his cane so much a part of himself as to seem a third member, his uncertain smile ever making its way to Jane's happy face, while she urged and assisted him to the porch. Plainly he loved Jane, and he enjoyed the prospect of a chat with Aunt Mary, for Uncle Todd was a ranch character, serving, by contrast, to picture more clearly the types so varied and so completely different from that which he presented. Uncle Todd was a conservative in a group of rebels. He kept with him the mannerisms of old New York State and was a Yankee of the strongest and deepest dye. Even the twang of voice, and tworl of words, had not been rounded out into the drawl of the hills around El Capitan.

"Good afternoon, or is it still mornin'?" wheezed the old man. "Glad I met Janie or that there shower might have blown me clean into the hereafter. Sich a blow," and he adjusted the confidential cane. "Jest like the one that came one afternoon last summer, when that there city fellar tried to sell me the trick umbrel." He clambered the low steps unsteadily. "And I mind, Janie girl, you happened along that day too. Seems like as if you know just when to happen," chuckling, he put his arm more firmly into that of the girl who urged him along.

"Now, Uncle Todd, you know very well you were perfectly all right when I found you just now. I do believe you were going to sit plumb down and defy the storm. Just to see what it would do at its worst. But you are a little wet," feeling the green coat that covered the bent shoulders. "I wonder, Aunt Mary, if we can't fit Uncle Todd out in some of daddy's regimentals."

"No need, no need," he objected. "This here co't don't leak a mite. Finest yarn--no more of this kind. I fetched it clear from Syracuse," he announced almost reverently.

"But you had better come inside," warned Aunt Mary, "the rain gets in here when the wind turns."

"Just as you say, Miss Allen. Fact is, I never say no to a sit in the parlor. I say to the boys, boys I say; if you want a real good comfortable chin, in a chair that's big enough for you, make it over at Henry Allen's place."

Graciously acknowledging the compliment, Aunt Mary and Jane led the old man into the living room he was wont to call the parlor.

"You are always welcome, Uncle Todd," said the lady.

"How about the boys, Auntie?" teased Jane. "Especially the one who plays the uke. I think he is wonderful. You should see him performing in the corral the other night. My, but he did swing that lasso!"

"You mean the fellar with the long, lanky build? He looks like he's been stretched out when he was wet!" put in Uncle Todd. "Yes, I heard him with that there fiddle box. 'Tain't more'n a mite of a box, with a couple of strings, but it kin keep a fellar awake, I tell you. There's a tree near my hut with a regular rickin' chair, made right in it, and them there boys like that place for their evenin's. Well, Uncle Todd goes to bed earlier than the young fellars and--well, the chap with the fiddle sure does love to tune up," and the usual chuckle ended his quaint statement.

"But I really want to know about the auction, Uncle Todd," interrupted Miss Allen. "I am so sorry Welche's folks had to give the old place up at last. Did they sell everything?"

"Couple times over. Never see such shouting and jumpin'. Why the Deeny girls, them old maids as never twisted their stiff necks to bow to man or beast in these parts, them was the wurst. They just seemed to want to buy every thin' and carry it away in their old barouche." The old man pounded his cane on the buffalo rug in sheer contempt. "Like as if they was goin' to set up a first class boardin' house hotel."

"Oh, you know, Uncle," enlightened Aunt Mary. "They are related to the Welches."

"Eggzactly. I recall. More reason why they should act decent like. There was Mother Welch, out back in the barn, her apron most pokin' her eyes out at every yell from old Sheriff Nailor."

"Now, I am just going to leave you two and the auction," spoke up Jane, "while I devour the delectable news in my letter. Did you ever have a letter too good to read, Uncle Todd?"

"Yes, girl, I know that feelin'. Like you hate to have it over because you want to have it on. Well, go to it, Janie, and don't swallow too much of that yellar paper. Looks poison like to me."

Jane crushed the yellow envelope to her breast, in sheer delight. Then she snapped up a knitting needle to open the cherished missive.

"You know, Auntie," she whispered, "this will tell us who won dadykin's scholarship." Then raising her voice to Uncle Todd's inquiring eyes, "Daddy gave a scholarship to my college, Unk," she told him. "Do you suppose some very nice, prim, prudy, who took the home correspondence course between making sister Julia pinafores and Jacob's jumpers, has won it? Of course, I respect home cooking girls, and particularly admire the devotees of domestic science, but Grade B from the Branchville would be all out of luck in the Wellington routine. Bye-bye now, and be good. Uncle Todd, don't make Aunt Mary envious with your report of auction bargains. She is always and ever objecting to catalogue prices."

With a gay wave of the letter, in which delight was momentarily suppressed, Jane flitted from the room to the porch, where now the last drops of the afternoon shower were reluctantly counting their totals. She dropped into the big wicker chair near the wisteria arch, and curled up like a kitten, in the way girls have of "fairly eating" a letter.

While she is thus perusing this perfectly private communication let us present Jane Allen formally to our readers.

In the first volume, "Jane Allen of the Sub-Team," we met her as a girl Solitaire. She had been reared on a ranch, without girl companions, and had never realized that tolerance which is necessary in the big world of boys and girls. But once at the Eastern college we like her best in her brave battles against the limits of conventions she finds there, and we cannot but admire the spirit with which she holds out, just long enough, and gives in just in time, to save situations. Perhaps the true deep affection, so soon shown for Jane by her classmates of the freshmen, is the best testimonial to her glory as Jane Allen Sub. Jane had for a time ignored the tame basketball sport, delighting in her stolen rides on Firefly (for her indulgent father had sent the saddle horse to school too with Jane as he expressed it), but finally acknowledging there was something worth while in the game Jane fought for a place on the team, and she won it triumphantly. The opposition tried many turns both fair and foul to defeat her, but Jane won out; with an interesting flourish.

Not less attractive was she as Jane Allen, Right Guard, in the second volume of the series. Girls can be very small sometimes, even behind the sheltering walls of important colleges, and in this story we were introduced to a set of "peculiars" commonly called "snobs," who spent a lot of perfectly good time trying to spoil Jane's ever-growing popularity at Wellington. Just how flatly they failed makes a rather thrilling tale. Haven't you read it? You will love the way Jane rescues Norma, the girl working her way through college, putting down scheme after scheme, concocted just to embarrass the poorer girl. Jane found a legitimate outlet for her talent as a joy maker, and a gloom crusher. Even taking it moderately, one is enthralled with her genius in making and keeping the best of friends, and Judith Stearns her "best," runs a close second with Jane in the popularity contest of the second volume.

CHAPTER II--TELLTALE TIDINGS

The letter which Jane had so counted on, had just now shed its delightful news, and at last she knew who had won the scholarship. Winding herself tighter still in the big wicker chair, so that she seemed a veritable circle of pink organdie, she snuggled the yellow pages closer in her prettily browned hands, read a few lines over for the n'th time and finally, with a spring and a sprint, made her way back to the living room.

Uncle Todd was evidently well pleased with his story of the Welch auction, for the palpitating cane was throbbing up and down in his sinewy hand, and Aunt Mary had completely laid aside her knitting, and sat with hands folded at attention.

"I would call it a shame," she commented as Jane entered.

"And you'd give it the right name," replied Uncle Todd.

At the threshold Jane hesitated. Even to her youthful eyes there was something restful in the picture.

"Good old pals," she said under her breath. "Aunt Mary knows how to entertain reclining years." Then picking up Bonnie, her ebony kitten, she coughed respectfully.

"Good news?" asked Aunt Mary.

"The best ever. Where is dad? I hate to give it to him second handed."

"Your father will not be back till dinner time, dear. He is over Lincoln way."

"Then we will have to enjoy it in trio. You know what it is about, Uncle Todd?"

"But, Janie girl, I've got to be a-goin'. Some chores and some cookin' to do, and if I don't get at it in good time I'm apt to slip it by. Good afternoon, ladies," he finished quite grandly. "Can't tell when I had sech a fine time."

"But you can't go now, Uncle Todd," objected Jane. "I am going to drive you over."

"No sich thing. If I don't keep a-walkin' my jints will gum up: I am goin' to walk."

"Oh, if you must," said Jane with the foolish social intonation. "So awfully sorry."

"Don't you jibe me, girlie," and he pinched her elbow. "You know as well as I do what it is worth to walk a mile a day."

"All right, Uncle Todd, but some day I am going to tell you all my good news. There comes Pedro. If you get tired just hail him, and he'll give you a lift."

Then, left alone with her aunt, Jane proceeded with the news from Wellington.

"Just see and listen," she commanded. "What a prospect of oodles of fun and frolic. Dad's scholarship has been won by a Polish artist. Think of it! A girl who plays the violin divinely, and who is--well, let's read it again."

She ran her finger over the introduction of the letter and traced out the lines which told of the Polish girl and the scholarship.

"Mrs. Weatherbee says," she announced, "that the girl is wonderfully interesting, and she is sure we shall be delighted. We are. Then she says the little artist comes from a girls' seminary, where she had been left uncalled for and that there is some mysterious story connected with her presence in America, but of course, (now listen in Auntie) of course, Mrs. Weatherbee knows I will not be carried off by any such sensational reports, but I will take the little Polish girl on her merits. Of course I shall, I shall even take her on trial, but you can picture the other girls, and the Polish artist? Auntie, that Marion Seaton will get in touch with the Bolshevik or something, to dig up trouble for my little friend, see if she doesn't. She will go into the archives of the fall of Poland, and the battle of Warsaw, to find out that my little artist's grandfather once dropped his musket in front of the king's palace. Oh my, Auntie mine," and she loosed some of her pent-up energy in a great "grizzly hug." "Why can't you and dad come along to school with me to see the fun?" For a moment her gray eyes took on the lingering look her friends called "the dove stare," then recovering her mirthful mood she pranced around, played first with Bonnie, then with Fliver the new puppy, all the while gathering and spending the joy of young girlhood.

"Don't bother too much about my clothes, Auntie dear," she warned with a new thought. "I think I shall ask dad if I may go to the city early, and help fit up my little artist. Then I may find a lot of things I shall like, all ready to wear."

"I had been thinking of proposing that, Janie dear," confessed the aunt, to whom the clothes problem had been an increasing worry with the addition of Jane's years. "I have read all the catalogues and sent for more, but I don't find exactly what I think you would fancy."

"No, and you won't, for I fancy a blouse and a skirt, just a little one, and perhaps a veil for evening wear." She held Fliver out at arm's length to enjoy the joke. "Of course, I would wear a so-called gown with the veil, but I love the veil, it is so shimmery." A scarf snatched from the end of the mahogany table served to illustrate the "shimmer" as Jane floated it triumphantly over her and Fliver's heads. The inevitable interpretative dance followed, and Fliver looked very frightened, evidently envying Bonnie her safety aisle on the rug.

"I am going to get your trunk out to-morrow," announced Aunt Mary, as an interlude. "I want to put some cedar chips in it, and Squaw Watah brought over a wonderful bunch of fragrant herbs, spice bush, savory and rosemary. I wonder where she raised them? She must have obtained some government seeds."

"Watah is a real farmerette," agreed Jane, coming to a standstill against the oaken post. "I would recommend her for a position in the Department of Agriculture. Ta, ta, Auntie, I'm off to get dad. I think he will be over the Copper Turn Hill about now, and I'll ride Firefly to be back with him. I am just dying to tell him the news."

"Janie, do be careful going down that steep hill. The boys who came collecting tin cans the other day told me the rocks fall in a torrent there now."

"Oh, I know. I'll be 'keer-ful.'" The voice came from the second stair landing. Jane Allen was on her way.

She reached her own horse and it took but a few gallops to bring her up to Mr. Allen.

"Do you suppose she will have light wavy hair, and very big blue eyes, Daddy? The aristocratic Poles are always light," was among the first questions.

"But I wouldn't classify them by eyes and hair exactly," replied the man on Victor, the big gray horse. "I've known a really fine Pole who was quite red headed."

"Now Daddy, don't tease. You know a girl must be--well, a little bit pretty at least, to be popular, and I am bound to have my artist wonderfully popular--after we win the battle, of course."

"I can well imagine the battle," and Henry Allen laughed so heartily Victor darted forward with a prance. "If your erstwhile friends, who made up the opposition last year, line up against your protege as vigorously as they attacked your other little friend, I am afraid you will take more time to train your guns on endurance, than on your favorite basketball, daughter."

"Indeed, Judy Stearns and I, and maybe Dorothy Martin, are very well able to hold our own against the Marian Seaton crowd," answered Jane, bringing Firefly's head up higher in punctuation. "I rather think they will not be quite so vigorous with their campaign of hate this year. I should think even envious girls would learn their lesson some time."

"I have often thought the same of the boys I have to deal with out here, but it is curious how envy sticks."

Pencils of sunset were now etching their path through the trees, and the well tramped road bore slight evidence of the afternoon's shower. "Daughter, I hate to have you go," continued Mr. Allen, "but your spirit makes me proud. Uncle Todd was telling the men out Lincoln way the other day, that Henry Allen's girl was almost as good as a boy."

"Oh, he is a character!" Jane exclaimed. "I had him over during the shower, and he and Aunt Mary had a great time gossiping. Dad, may I go to New York a little early? That is, quite early," she qualified cautiously.

"Of course, daughter. But why the haste?"

"Well, you see, about this new girl--she will have to be fitted out. Mrs. Weatherbee hinted she would get some friends interested in her who might help, but it seems to me I could make my allowance do for both of us."

"You just get what you want, little girl. Don't worry about the bill. Old dad has still some credit, you know."

Even Firefly tried to edge closer to respond gratefully. Jane tipped her little whip under her father's chin, thereby endangering the tilt of his cap. "You are always so generous, Dad. Couldn't I gather tin cans to sieve the copper through, or do something to make up?" she asked playfully. "Really, if I am almost as good as a boy, don't you think I might sometime act the part?"

"You are a heap better, little girl, and I have no wish to see you act otherwise than just as my Janie," replied the smiling father. "But those boys you have just noticed gathering the tins are wasting their time. No more copper comes this way in the mine water. All their rusty tins will be wasted, for Montana copper is being too well worked these days," declared Mr. Allen, referring to the tin-can trick of collecting copper through the cyanide method.

"Oh, how disappointed they will be! Should we tell them?" suggested Jane, observing at that moment the group of boys trudging along with their cart of old tins.

"Well, they may get some farther on, but not around here," amended Mr. Allen. "By the way, Janie, when do you want to start with this new plan of shopping and college trip?"

Jane looked under her long lashes to discover, if possible, how her father felt about her leaving earlier than they had planned. But he was flicking Victor with the willow whip, and she obtained no clue to his feelings from his expression.

Jane hated to be so abrupt--of course he would be lonely.

"Oh, I thought I might leave about ten days earlier," she ventured. "That will give me time to locate the Polish girl, get acquainted, and help with her outfit. Besides, Aunt Mary suggested that I buy some of my things ready-to-wear, as it is so difficult here to shop by mail from St. Paul."

"That would be about when?" persisted the father.

"About next Wednesday."

"Very well, girlie. Just so long as I know how many signed checks to get ready, and how many men to assign to the baggage."

Jane looked relieved. Her father plainly had come to the same conclusion she had managed to confine her reasoning to, namely: since she couldn't bring the Eastern college to El Capitan, she would have to go to the college, and that protesting against the details of separation from her beloved ranch home, simply threw a shadow over the prospect of a joyful year at school.

"We are getting educated, Janie," Mr. Allen said, as they pulled up to the waiting groom. "Old dad takes the school term as a matter of course now. Not that I don't miss my little girl as much as ever, but because I have taken the home course in economics--the grade that gives us all the discipline and the self control," he laughed at this attempt to qualify his change of mental attitude. He was a wonderful father, a perfectly adorable pal, and withal a business man whose name spelled power and prosperity.

"Dad, all the same I'm a weakling," admitted Jane. "Because I just hate to leave you--and----"

"There's a special messenger boy all the way from Copper Hill Turn," interrupted the father. "Now what do you suppose he is bringing us in the way of good news?"

The Mexican boy slipped off his burro and with an indescribable salute (something between a military motion and an acrobatic finish to some remarkable star act) he handed the message to Mr. Allen.

"Yours, daughter. Whoever is writing you from over the hills and what can be so very important as to fetch Santos?" asked Mr. Allen.

"All our wonders seem to come by post," commented Jane. She was scanning the few words on the telegram sent in from the nearest railway station. Suddenly she gave a jump, and seemed too overcome with emotion to express herself in words.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed, finally. "Judy is on her way back from the coast and is looking for us. She is at the Hill Turn. Oh, can you imagine Judy Stearns getting way out here, and being with me on the trip to college!"

"Rare luck indeed, daughter. At the station did you say? Well, let us get to her at once. Can't take a chance on her getting into that famous stage coach of Curly Bill's. You run in and tell Aunt Mary the glad news, and I'll get the tandem hitched. Don't you think it will be nice to show her our best style?"

"Oh, lovely, Daddy. But I am so excited. I never could have dreamed of such luck. To have dear old Judy visit me here until I go back, and then to have her travel with me! Yes, get the tandem. Pedro!" she called to the man just losing himself in the trees towards the big stable. "Come over here! Daddy, don't you slick up a single bit. I want Judy to see you as a ranch chief. And I think I'll get into my Bronco Billie outfit just to show off. No, that wouldn't go with tandem, would it? Yes, it would too," she changed her mind and decided again, too excited to act rationally.

"Now, I'll dress and be ready in five minutes," announced the girl. "Oh, I forgot I haven't told you the message," she had it crumbled in her brown hand. "'Am at the Hill Turn Station. Tell me how to reach you.' There, we will show her how we reach her," and she skipped off leaving her father to arrange about the tandem and the high red-wheel cart.

CHAPTER III--OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

With that efficiency so marked in large establishments (for El Capitan was large and really an establishment) the new arrangements of driving over the hills for Judith Stearns, Jane's college room-mate, and the preparations Aunt Mary was wont to add to the already splendidly planned guest entertainment, were all perfected and carried out without so much as exciting Pedro to complain of his delayed supper, and its consequent effect on "the game" that was to follow.

"I am so glad," Aunt Mary murmured. "Now I shall have a chance to see Jane's most intimate companion, and it will afford me such an opportunity of studying the dear girls, and thus being better able to understand them. I have always wished that Jane might have had some playmate of her own kind, and she is so very fond of Judith, I shall be delighted to know her also."

It seemed to the busy little woman that Jane and her father were scarcely gone when a shrill blast of the trumpet announced their return.

With a flourish the coaching party drew up to the porch. The delight of the girls was so evident Mr. Allen and his sister hurried through the formalities of welcome to leave the chums alone together.

"Now, we will just leave you all to yourselves," he concluded, when Aunt Mary had directed the man to carry in the bags, and ordered the maid to announce dinner in twenty minutes, that length of time being demanded by Jane as necessary for Judith's freshening up. Arms twined around shoulders, eyes reflecting each other's very thoughts, chatting and laughing over happenings absolutely foreign to those outside the charmed circle of college interests, the chums entered upon their period of pre-school and post-vacation days.

"And to think I might have missed all this if I had not thought of you and the copper mines," Judith was saying as Jane fastened the snaps on her light silk "freshen up" gown. "You know, Janie, I am just as forgetful as ever, only I have a new system: I don't forget the things I love best."

"I will agree you may indulge that habit to the limit, Judy, if you stick to your professed plan. Then I know I shall never get in the jumble of mixups with things you don't love," Jane affectionately assured her.

"I don't wonder you hated to leave home for school, Jane," said the visitor, surveying the rustic beauty of the rambling house, built unlike a California bungalow, and unlike an Eastern mansion, but exactly like what should be the home of Jane Allen. "This is absolutely charming."

"What?" asked Jane teasing. "Our Jap boy cook, or our Mexican boy valet? We have a queer household. Quite cosmopolitan, to put it mildly. Sometimes, when they get excited, I fancy the Tower of Babel has fallen anew. Come on, that means dinner," as the big Indian gong pealed softly its muffled announcement.

The tall girl with the blue eyes and glossy brown hair, Judith Stearns, possessed a certain dignity Jane had not yet acquired. Perhaps that was the result of her Eastern home life and its culturing influence. As Henry Allen critically, if surreptitiously, noted Jane was different, but he liked Jane first rate. She might be a little bit of a tom-boy around the ranch, but she was a great pal to build up a home with. The two girls took their places side by side at the long polished table, Aunt Mary gracing the head and Mr. Allen sitting at the opposite end, from where he not only dispensed the plentiful fare, but irradiated the charm of the gracious and well seasoned host that he was.

"Janie, your favorite troubador has a little gift for you," he interposed. "I could not guess what all his apologies and con grazias presaged the other day, but finally he admitted he had made for the senorita a small music box. It is from the best grade cigar case, and has the finest antelope string. He drew his fingers across it to assure me, and it really made very sweet music."

"Oh, a home made ukelele! How splendid!" exclaimed Jane. "I shall take it to Wellington, and maybe my little Polish artist can sing to its accompaniment! I am just wild about those little ukes. Daddy, when will Fedario deliver it?"

"It was not quite finished," replied Mr. Allen. "I fancy he is going to decorate it with perforations to sieve the tones very, very fine. He went into the ranch store with me yesterday, and bought a little scroll saw. Fedario is very musical. The boys complain he sings to the horses, and that the animals expect it from the less accomplished, who are more apt to growl than warble. At any rate, I notice he gets along with the wildest broncos. But his talent for music is marked. He goes off in the trees, and is better satisfied with his guitar than another might be with a whole flock of companions and their unfailing energy at cards."

"Oh, yes," Jane remembered, "he must be the boy Uncle Todd said kept him awake nights, singing in the chair tree at his hut. But Judy, can you imagine my uke sounding weird strains, under windows and behind closet doors? We will surely be able now to capture Calliope for stunt nights, with my Mexican ukelele."

"Yes. And I just know you will play wonderful ditties on it. I heard them in Frisco--the girls from Hawaii gave a concert at a carnival, and they brought out some splendid music from the little fiddles. Personally, I feel I should have to use a can opener, but you know how popular the uke is now, Janie. I can just see you carrying it around like Fido, and sleeping with it at the foot of your bed, on your baby-blue silk quilt."

This vision brought a ripple of mirth from the diners. That the uke should become as popular as the lap dog was admitted by all who had observed the average young girl's growing love for the miniature music box.

"I have to tell you so much more of my new plans, Judy," digressed Jane, as Aunt Mary signalled to the Jap dinner was finished. "I have only just begun on my new prospectus. I haven't even named my little artist."

"I am sure we will have the best year ever," replied the guest. "We have had Adrienne, the French girl, and a couple of other high-class Europeans last year, but we have never before entertained a Polish girl. I know perfectly well how the Marian Seaton crowd will regard her. With horns, you can be sure."

"Oh, I have counted on that," Jane admitted. "All the more room for fun. If our new friend is not too sensitive," and the gray eyes expressed just the least glint of suppressed anxiety.

"Indeed, we are equal to the opposition now, no matter what attack they take. It is a wonder to me they don't promptly capitulate."

"Too much steam in the wrong valve," informed Jane. "It has to be drawn off in the trouble pipe."

"Or might result in an explosion," helped out Mr. Allen. "Janie, I suppose you often get your mining efficiency mixed with your psychology." He turned to Judith hospitably. "Miss Stearns, I cannot tell you how pleased we are that you have been able to make this visit. Janie and I were just about at the end of our rope on the trail of a good time, when we got your wire. Now we have an incentive, for we both love to show off, don't we, Janie?"

"I'll match you, Dad," she challenged. "I believe I can show off more high spots around El Capitan than you can. I even know how to catch copper in tin cans."

At this all laughed. Janie had made a reputation early in her ranch life following the boys who staked claims and attempted to work the mines with purloined tin cans.

"I thought perhaps we would arrange a little party to go into Union Centre for to-morrow if you care to, girls," Aunt Mary injected. "The Indians are in, and we may find some trinkets suitable for souvenirs."

"Splendiforous, Auntie. I want a couple of baskets so much, and some bead bags to take back. I think I'll give the faculty all pretty bead bags, as vacation gifts."

"Peace offerings," suggested Judith. "I think that a fine idea. Wonder if I couldn't find a bag with an apology beaded on it? I owe one to my Latin teacher."

"Well, the evening is slipping, or climbing, whichever you choose, young ladies, and I am going to run around the corral to do a little inspecting to-night. Would you care to go?" asked Mr. Allen.

"Oh, I should love to!" exclaimed Judith with enthusiasm. "I have always longed to see a ranch outside the movies. Jane, I had no idea you owned all Montana."

"We really do not quite own the entire state," replied Jane, echoing the facetious tone of her chum. "But dad has quite a corner of it. Yes, we will go with you, Dadykins, and maybe Judy will have an opportunity of judging Fedario's talent. He is sure to be in the chair-tree with his guitar. Dad, why don't you organize a glee club?"

"No need to organize, daughter, the boys have one in splendid working order. Perhaps we will be able to have a concert from them before you leave."

"Oh, how jolly! Jane, how do you think we will ever be able to tear ourselves away from all this? Couldn't we start a home-study course, or something outside?" pouted Judith.

Donning their brilliant sweaters, the girls were soon ready, and taking their places in the buck-board set out to assist in the inspection. Within the corrals the shouting of the cowboys, and the antics of broncos and ponies, presented a scene quite like the Wild West of the screen world. Jane and Judith were in their glory. Jane with the joy of exhibiting the "High Spots of Ranch Life," she had promised, and Judith with the exhilarating delight of observing such wonders for the first time.

"And to think I might have missed it all," she reflected in Jane's ear, when a dash of the ponies brought them up to the end of the fenced-in patches of dust, noise and horses. "I had not planned to stop off until--Can you guess what made me think you lived somewhere near the Montana trail?"

"Oh, of course. Butte, pronounced 'beaut'?" ventured Jane, and even Henry Allen considered the guess worthy of a prize. And he said so.

This particular evening, the prelude of a series that followed, there was carried out a program of such enjoyment, that one would easily agree with Judith, it would be hard indeed for the girls to tear themselves away from the ranch life to take up the circumspect duties of college. The excitement of actually bargaining with the Indians and obtaining the souvenir beaded bags (although none with an abject apology worked in its intricacies was to be found for Judith), then the dear moccasins, about which Mr. Allen coaxed the squaws to tell such quaint fables, not to speak of the mysteriously woven baskets, made big enough and small enough for any imaginable dressing or sewing use, when all garnered and gathered made up a precious burden for the depot cart in which the El Capitan party rode home that wonderful summer afternoon.

"Couldn't we stop at Squaw Squatty's, Daddy? I would love to have the old Indian tell Judy's fortune," Jane suggested.

"Oh, yes, do," pleaded Judy. "I want so much to know about a big secret I have planned for the first half," she volunteered. "Jane, I'll tell you about it, maybe. But I should like to know how it will all pan out, and I'm sure a squaw would be able to foretell," she ventured, with a sly grimace at Aunt Mary.

CHAPTER IV--WOO NAH AND THE FORTUNES

"Can we make it, Daddy?" asked Jane. "Doesn't that look like a little cyclone cloud?" indicating the cloud with a "tail" that seemed to be gathering color and speed as the buckboard traveled on.

"Old Squatty's cabin would be as good a place as any in a blow," her father replied. "If we get one, we could put the horses in shelter around there, and maybe the lightning might give the old lady a real glimpse into the beyond. Shall we try it, sister?" to Miss Allen who was, as a rule, rather timid of the storms that sprung up so suddenly on the plains.

"I am perfectly willing," acquiesced the lady. "As you say, brother, the cabin would be a comparatively safe place to seek shelter in."

With that velocity peculiar to storms of the prairie the anticipated baby cyclone gathered force, and with one great gust and almost without warning broke over their heads.

Jane opened the curtains of the cart to allow the gale a way out, without incurring the possibility of upsetting them. Judith was simply fascinated with the sweep everything was taking, but Aunt Mary gathered herself as far as possible into her bonnet and wrap, scarcely venturing to speak while Mr. Allen held his horses in with a firm rein.

"Just a few paces," he shouted reassuringly. "Hold tight!"

"All right," called back Jane, and so deafening was the swirl that only a clear, loud voice such as she exercised could have made its way to the driver just in front.

Two big shaggy dogs intercepted the dash of the buckboard into the squaw's lane. The old woman was still outside, hunched up in the queerest sort of a hammock, made of a halfed barrel, strung up to two young oak trees. With something like a howl she called the dogs off, and waved a stick to the travelers to come in, seemingly sensing the possibility of profit in their visit. Mr. Allen discovered where to find shelter for his team, and as the storm was tearing and scattering limbs of trees, and everything it could wrench from stability, he did not stop until he had entered the queer stable with the cart and its occupants.

"Now we are in for it," he admitted, assisting Aunt Mary to alight. "I'm glad we are here and not on Steeple Hill."

"Thrills!" exclaimed Judith. "More thrills. I have seen nothing but wonders since I came to Montana. I really think, Janie, I have had more real experiences while here than in all my coast touring."

"Lovely of you to say so, Judy. But just wait till you see old Mrs. Teekawata. She is the wife of the one great medicine man, or rather his widow. Don't mention fortune telling, that would offend her. She is a 'scientist.' She will mix up stuffs, and get clues from the smoke! That is if she is in a communicative mood."

"Or in need of white bread," amended Mr. Allen, who had overheard the girls. "Teekawata is a business woman with talents wasted. She should have been a copper queen."

The storm was scattering almost as quickly as it had gathered. The old squaw had tumbled out of her half barrel, and leaning on her stick, awaited the party's approach from the shack. Aunt Mary edged close to her brother. She had no love for these old Indians, and rather feared for her belongings when in their company.

"Greeting!" called Mr. Allen to the old woman. "Thunder Cloud sent you his good word. Did you see how he followed us in here?"

"Si si," answered the woman, who was of the Mexican type. "Approach!" and she indicated an old bench under the mendicant vines that straggled around the hut. So heavy had they grown the rain of the shower had not penetrated their depths, and like a canopy, they arched over the poles, propped at ends for their support. She stared at the girls without any pretext of apology. Judith with her dark hair seemed particularly attractive to the squaw's flagrant scrutiny. Aunt Mary remained outside.

"The young ladies wonder," ventured Mr. Allen, "if you have heard from Teekawata lately, Woo Nah. Perhaps he has sent a message for their good health?"

"Health!" she repeated in good English. "The medicine man forgets not the health of good white brothers. The sunset gives light to their cheeks, and the stars sleep in their eyes," she rhapsodied.

Jane nudged Judith to make note of the compliment.

"When Woo Nah was at the government school," continued the Indian, "she has seen many young girl. They come to give English. Some with hair and eyes like the morning, others with the midnight hair and coals from the fire eyes. But they all like Woo Nah," she insisted.

"Of course," chimed in Jane. "We like her also. Will you tell us what you know from your great husband, the Medicine Man of Broken Hill?"

"Teekawata, would not that I should foretell. But I give a dream--a dream of happiness," and she arose from the patched chair to lead the party within the cabin.

"I shall wait here," concluded Aunt Mary, who had no curiosity about the fortune telling or the interior of the ramshackle hut. In fact she was holding unnecessarily tight to her small hand-bag.

"Woozy," whispered Judith, whose eyes were sparkling like the coals or the quartz gems Woo Nah had described.

Within the cabin an assortment of snake skins and some very large ears of dried corn formed a queer decoration on the log walls. A few skins, perhaps those of the prairie rat, were also in evidence, while the glossy red corn with its artistic husk hung gracefully over a strange picture, that Jane told Judith was a portrait of the famous medicine man Teekawata. Chairs were relics of civilization which must have touched the spot at some time in a period of miners transition. The table was nailed to the wall and on it the litter of stuff spoiled an otherwise rustic effect. An American stove in the corner was evidently of the same vintage as the chairs, and there were other bits of furniture and dishes--perhaps accepted in payment for the services of the medicine man, who for years had given some sort of service to the settlers and their families.

"Not sisters?" asked and answered the old woman, to Judith and Jane.

"No, but very good friends," Mr. Allen replied with a ring in his voice that Jane and her chum fully appreciated.

The old woman now took her place on a queer high stool. On a three-legged table just beneath this stool was a big Mexican earthen bowl. Carefully she took a cover off the rather pretty jar, and then opened what looked like a snuff box. This she squinted into with a show of importance and concern.

"For the ladies' good health I will ask Teekawata to make promise," she began. Then she lifted the snuff box above her head and muttered some unintelligible wail.

Judith had grasped Jane's hand. The scene was getting weird and a return of the storm, a sort of backfire, made the whole thing seem uncanny.

"Experience," whispered Jane. "Gives us material for school work."

"Yes, but it is creepy," answered back Judith. "I wish the storm would blow over."

The old woman continued to mumble and make cabalistic passes with the snuff box. Finally she took a match and dropped some powder from the box into the bowl, struck the match on the side of her stool and put the flame to the powder. Soon a slim string of smoke climbed out from the edge of the jar.

Mr. Allen's face wore so broad a smile that, if the girls had thought of attaching any significance to the performance, this would have dissipated it.

"Teekawata, come!" called the Indian.

"Midnight hair and starlight eyes," began the squaw, "Teekawata sends greeting and health. In gold you will make the fortune of much. Much yet will you find in the great heart of friends. From the Bear come strong." At this moment she brought her arms out in a gesture indicating strength, but Judith dodged. She liked the soothsaying as an entertainment, but objected to personal demonstrations. The old woman scowled. Jane was bowing her head in abject attention to make amends for her friend's distraction.

"The Bear star will give our girl power," suggested Mr. Allen to keep the squaw on the right track through the clouds.

"Hush!" exclaimed the woman. "Teekawata knows no white spirit."

"Beg pardon," Mr. Allen could not help whispering for it was too funny to interrupt a ghost like that.

The squaw wasted another pinch of her spirit power from the snuff box. She also shook her head apprehensively, to show that Teekawata would not stand for nonsense. It required a few moments for the "spirits" to get going again.

"Brave and strong and happy," she finally conceded further to Judith's future, and both girls secretly wondered if that would apply to Judith's famous faculty of absent mindedness. An exchange glance between them was thus perfectly understood.

"A very safe fortune," commented Mr. Allen with a degree of irony happily lost on the Indian. Never had information as to the possible future seemed so completely veiled, as that the old woman pretended to give out. To say nothing of generalities it was simply insipid.

Turning to Jane the Indian changed her tactics.

"The young lady make wish?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, certainly," responded Jane. She covered her twitching face with her hands. Then she looked up and nodded. "I have wished."

The Indian mixed more powder until the girls could no longer suppress a coughing fit. Mr. Allen looked vaguely at a window that was only a part of the scenery evidently, for vines were growing all over the ledge. He sighed and choked. Jane put up a detaining hand. She did not want her fortune interrupted.

"Much gold, much happiness, all the good luck," began Woo Nah diplomatically. "On the horse it is to be 'look out.' No run over hill in dark. Woo Nah see big hole much dark--no too much run wild." This advice was given in a tone of real warning.

Judith was delighted. Jane was being scolded for being too wild. She should not run away in the dark with Firefly. What a good joke on Jane!

Then, as if fearing an ill effect on her audience, Woo Nah quickly turned her cards, by stirring up the smoky powder again.

"In the big city there is too much go," she now spoke with authority. "All go, go, not take rest for stars, or for great good in pale moon. Fiery head blaze to joy like paper with match, but no ashes keep for to-morrow. All blow away like Teekawata smoke," and she pointed her sharp finger at the smoke Mr. Allen was vainly trying to ward off.

"Riches always and good health. No sorrow but from home," she mumbled. "Friends come like the flowers, too thick to count, too thin for hold, but some stay so fast winter will not take. Girl with midnight cloud true for always; the one with the dried corn ropes," (she twisted her hands over her head to illustrate where the corn silk rested on the head of some one to be suspected) "of that one beware. She is for evil, for enemy for the--sneak." This last she fairly hissed, and in spite of themselves the girls' minds reverted to Marian Seaton, who had made so much trouble for Jane. She had the hair of changeable corn silk, sometimes brown, on good days quite yellow, and between times a discouraged tawn.

"And my wish?" ventured Jane.

The old woman looked up and almost smiled. Perhaps she could see a good joke herself.

"It will--come--" she hesitated. The smoke was getting thin and its clouds were evidently difficult to translate. Finally she actually opened her mouth and swallowed what she could inhale of the vapor. Judith laughed outright, but Jane kept her eyes on the Indian in abject and wrapt attention. If she failed to "foretell" it would not be Jane's fault.

"Firehead shall have her wish," she exclaimed triumphantly, and Mr. Allen jumped to his feet to put the period on the "Kibosh." He had had enough of the Indian rubbish, and felt the girls had about all they could enjoy.

It may seem bromidic to say the Indian rubbed her palms as Mr. Allen thrust his in his pockets, she may even have suffered some irritation from the smoke she had been gathering, at any rate when Mr. Allen handed her over a good clean green dollar, she all but kissed it, the girls would have testified.

"From New York?" asked Woo Nah as they prepared to leave.

"Yes," replied Judith crisply.

"Woo Nah has friend New York. He make beauty," she patted her cheek to illustrate how her friend made beauty in New York.

"Oh, a beauty doctor," interrupted Jane.

"Yes, he send to Woo Nah and Woo Nah give the beauty medicine." She hobbled over to a box and raising the cover displayed a lot of dried herbs or possibly weeds.

"Young lady like?" she asked.

"Why, yes. If it will give us beauty," replied Jane with a quizzical smile at Judith, who was whispering to Mr. Allen.

"Make tea and wash hair with this," and Woo Nah picked up a handful of the dried leaves. "I put the sunset water in bottle," she took a small vial, into which she poured, from the big brown bottle, a very carefully measured out quantity of the colorless fluid. "This is for the face, and in the morning the beauty shines," she declared. Jane accepted the little bottle with a show of gratitude. Judith was still the doubter, and made queer eyes during all the presentation speech.

"We have had a lovely time," she did take the trouble to express. "Woo Nah, when you come to New York to see your friend the beauty doctor, you must look for us. Ask for Wellington College," she finished, and, as if both girls could imagine that old Indian paying them a social call at the aristocratic Wellington, Jane and Judith bolted for the cabin door, and breathed more freely when out again in the refreshing air and struggling sunshine. It had cleared now and the sun was coming out.

"Oh, Aunt Mary!" exclaimed Jane contritely gathering up the bag and book. "Did we keep you too long?"

"I have my book," answered Miss Allen, who had been out of doors during all the seance. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Oh, yes, it was--funny," Jane said quietly. "Let's hurry. Dad will be too late for his telephoning. I feel guilty to have detained him for all that nonsense. Aunt Mary, I am to be beautiful. I have a lotion guaranteed to make me so," and she indicated the little bottle she held rather gingerly. Mr. Allen hurried to the old shack for the buckboard, and only the chatter of the two happy young girls marked the mileage of the home-going journey through the afternoon shadows of the Montana hills.

CHAPTER V--ON THEIR WAY

"But I am sort of perplexed," Jane admitted to Judith. "It was lovely, of course, for the boys to serenade us, and I think Fedario quite a sport to give us the ukelele, but how can we return the--compliment? I feel we ought to thank them, somehow."

"Couldn't we give them a straw ride?"

Jane burst out laughing. "Oh, Judy, you poor pale-face! Can you fancy giving cowboys a straw ride?"

"Now, Jane Allen, I did not mean to pack them all into one hay-rick or anything as grotesque as that," answered Judith in pique. "But couldn't we give them the picnic that goes at the end of the ride, and eliminate the ride?"

Another gale of laughter followed this suggestion. Judith plainly knew very little of the joys of ranch life.

"I really think," said Jane, "if we want to give them a good time we would have to make it a good game of poker, and that is altogether out of the question. Most of the ranch men think joy and gambling synonymous, and dad has all he can do to keep the sporting tendency within bounds. No, I guess we will just have to let them know somehow, how much we appreciated their concert. Then we must start seriously to prepare for our journey."

Judith's face darkened. She had had a wonderful time at El Capitan, and the thought of leaving was not a signal of joy.

"I shall hate to go," she sighed. "It has been divine, Janie."

"And glorious for me to have you, Judy." Jane twined her arm around the good friend. "I am not going to forget Woo Nah's prophecy. My good friend for always has the midnight hair." She touched Judith's dark tresses softly.

"Now, wasn't it the skylight eyes?" teased Judith.

"At any rate, I lined up Marian Seaton with the corn-silk hair," recalled Jane.

"And we are to be beautiful if we make a tea of the wild cinnamon and wash in it! Don't forget that."

"Oh, no," Jane corrected. "We wash in the silver solution. Old lady Woo Nah must know a little about chemistry, for that liquid is a solution of silver, and it certainly would bleach. I have tried it on Fliver and his nice brown coat has now a whitish patch. Fancy trying that on the skin of natural girls!"

It was one of the "last days" at El Capitan. Jane and Judith were exchanging opinions on so many topics, that they called the occasion their mental cleaning period. True, the matter of the cowboys' serenade, a musical event of importance in the ranch season, had not been satisfactorily disposed of, for the boys had really furnished a very creditable program with their ukes, banjoes, mouth organs, clippers and Dingo Joe's concertina. Fedario acted as leader, and Judith declared New York could furnish no greater thrill, even on a roof garden, than that which she experienced when the cyclone of sound broke loose under her window. Then, when she and Jane (chaperoned by Aunt Mary) appeared on the rose-vined balcony in their silken robes, the only regret expressed was that the moonlight would not give enough glare for focussing a picture on Jane's camera.

It was midnight when the Jap "cleany yupped" after the spread furnished the serenaders, but no dance at its best, could have been more novel or enjoyable. The girls remained on their second floor balcony, while Mr. Allen descended to entertain in the big, roomy kitchen, but even from that distance Jane and Judith heard the "pieces spoke" and joined in the laughter following some of the ludicrous attempts at histrionic feats.

"After all," philosophized Mr. Allen, "living near to Nature makes children of us all, and our boys are mere kindergartners when it comes to home sports."

"I always feel like a leader in a Sunday school," commented Aunt Mary, "when we entertain them. It is surely a good work, and they are so appreciative."

"And I always feel like--well, as if I belonged to the idle rich, when the boys pay us a visit. It is so narrow to have to make class distinction, and feed them in the kitchen," Jane objected with a note of scorn in her voice.

"Now, Janie," insisted Judith, "didn't Woo Nah say something about Bolshevism and the Girl? Your sentiments sound rather extreme. Can you imagine Dingo Joe among forks?"

"Boy all samee too much grub," objected Willie Wing the cook. "Likee big cow."

The above is an excerpt from the conversation that sifted through the Allen home on the morning following the "doin's" catalogued as the Cowboys' Serenade. Jane and Judith both made copious notes of the occasion in their diaries, but in spite of these records the real story was not to be told in mere words. It required the language of the boys themselves to give the affair its actual color. This was, however, plentifully supplied all over the ranch for at least a day after, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be, "that Miss Allen was a peach," and her friend "some girl." Also "that Chief Allen ought to be president of the United States, and the little sister woman would be all right for the first lady of the land."

The boys had rehearsed for their concert for more than a week, and consequently what was not given in perfection was supplied in enthusiasm, and the memory of that performance, for actors and audience, would not soon be obliterated by the everyday work of life and its prosaic demands.

So it was that the last day at home for Jane Allen had arrived.

The presence of her friend, Judith, softened the usual sadness of the hour of parting. Mr. Allen was both father and companion to his high-strung, brave little daughter, and the separation was necessarily momentous. Judith, alert to the situation, bubbled around, blowing in and out, on all the little love scenes, managing adroitly to curtail Jane's meditation before the reverenced picture of "Dearest," Jane's departed mother.

"I can imagine what will happen when we take up our New York quarters," she prophesied as Jane was all velvet-eyed and unnaturally quiet after a "word" with Aunt Mary. "I am so glad I can go with you, and not be required to report home first. Our folks will be resting until Kingdom Come after that Coast tour. We had so many delays and mixups."

"Oh, I could never go to housekeeping without you, Judy," Jane replied brightening. "I dream of the shopping tours and the hunting trips, and I match colors with my Polish girl's eyes, and take samples of her hair to bed with me. I have not really decided on her hair, although I rather incline to blonde."

"Oh, of course. I never saw a Polish girl other than a blonde," declared Judith. "But, Janie, I cannot help wondering how your daddy trusts you with so much--money. This will be very expensive."

"You forget, Judy dear, that I am his confidential clerk. I could run this entire ranch if daddy were incapacitated. He misses Dearest so much I feel I must be more than just plain daughter to him," and her soft gray eyes became suspiciously misty again.

"Well, I'm packed. Thank goodness my trunks went on from the coast! Do you remember how I packed someone's dress in my bag at Wellington? It may be funny to one's friends, to do absurd things through absent mindedness, but it simply terrifies me to think of what I may do with others' money and such trifles. Aren't you afraid, Janie dear, I will run off with some of your family plate?"

"Not the leastest bit," and Jane swung around to give her chum a punctuating hug. "Judy, haven't you promised to keep your failing for your enemies, and never to work it off on your friends?" she reminded the girl, who was fairly dancing around the spacious room, as if wanting to cover every inch of it before bidding good bye to El Capitan.

"Yes, I know, Janie. But I have a horror of certain things," and she glanced quizzically at the wonderful silver set on Jane's mahogany dresser. "Then, too, I might walk in my sleep and--go right down stairs and talk sweetly to Fedario on one of his serenade sprees. But, Janie, I shall never forget--to--love--you."

The journey East began next morning.

"It must be the quiet of the country that gives you such a wonderful set of nerves," Judith ruminated when they had reached their compartment. "I always feel I must explode, even when there is no chance of combustion. Here we are, without a hair lost, and I felt ten minutes ago we would never make this train."

"Perhaps it is sort of self reliance," Jane ventured. "We ranchers never miss a train--wouldn't dare to, we would have to wait too long for the next; but neither would we feel justified in getting all ruffled up in excitement. That is bad for--georgette crepe," she finished, smoothing the texture mentioned, in her dainty little blouse, that had brushed up the least bit in the final good byes.

"Now we can think of Wellington," proposed Judith, settling back comfortably.

"I just can't bear to see Montana running away from me, so I refuse to look," and she wheeled her chair around, back to window.

"As you like," agreed Jane. "But I am so fond of all the high spots of Yellowstone I want a very 'lastest' look. But let's to Wellington. I do wonder how many of the old set will be back? The war has changed so many homes, we may have to take over an entirely new contingent."

"Best luck," commented Judith. "We may thus eliminate the undesirables."

"And get a lot very much worse," feared Jane.

"How could we, with Marian Seaton?"

"But we had Adrienne, and Norma and Dorothy--they more than outbalanced the rebels."

"Well, I claim," and Judith produced the inevitable box of chocolates from her Indian beaded bag, "I claim that a girl who does not love--me or you, is not normal, for it is perfectly evident and obvious, and other synonyms, that we are simply--charming." When Judith "went in the movies" even so far as to act a scene in the drawing room car, she never failed to "register" strong emotion.

CHAPTER VI--JOURNEY DE LUXE

"Judith," said Jane with the solemnity of a senior, "I really feel we are facing a momentous year. Sports must be revived with vigor----"

"Oh, you will take care of that, Janie dear," interrupted Judith. "Even when I want to sleep a bit late o' morning, and have been reading a little after hours the night before, I recall you have a knack of getting me out to practice. Now remember, girl, I positively refuse to hike a la empty. I must have my porridge first."

"But as I was saying about sports," returned Jane, "I am ambitious for this year. We ought to make it the banner year for basketball."

"And we shall," declared her chum. "With the skill you developed last season, and the wonderful team work we marshalled, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to go out, and simply eat up the other colleges. I've been playing bean bag with the Jap cook in Los Angeles to keep in trim."

"Thought beans were too costly to toss around," joked Jane. "Judy, look at that dear little old lady over there," indicating a chair near the rear of the car. "Just see the sampler she is working."

"Yes," and Judith swung a bit towards the aisle. "I have been watching her. She is working a family tree. Wonder for whose hope chest."

"I was surprised to know that mothers are now making samplers for their sons," Jane followed. "Seems rather queer for boys to encroach on the girls' fancies. I know a mother who has two boys, and she has a family sampler made for each. Also, she has a wonderfully stocked hope chest for them. Seems to me she must have had some difficulty in choosing the hopefuls."

"Suppose she made it all face cloths, and socks and neckties. But really, I don't see what she could collect that would keep in style. A hope chest for boys! Ridiculous!" sneered Judith.

"Some boys are very sentimental, you know," Jane reminded her.

"But mothers should not encourage such weakness," protested Judith.

"Well, I hope your boy has a chest full of--chocolates," and Jane helped herself to the disappearing confection.

"I haven't had a chance to show you my new vanity case," Judith broke in. "Don't you think it pretty?" and she produced what looked like a little medicine emergency kit. It was of black stiff leather and made square, absolutely contrary in effect to the soft velvet pouches so long in vogue.

"Oh, isn't it lovely!" enthused Jane. "And such a mirror!"

"Yes, I can almost see how my skirt hangs with it. I found it at a fair in Frisco. It was a prize sample. And, Jane dear, I have one for you, in a brown that matches your hair, but I was so disappointed that the initials were not on it, and I had to send it back. It will be ready, though, by the time we get to New York once again."

"Oh, how--wonderful!" and Jane squeezed the hand that still brushed the candy box. "Judy, I have held off from a 'vanity' because I have been too vain to invest in one. Do you know, I think, honestly, that when we deliberately ignore conventions we usually do it through pride? Too proud to depend on a traveling boudoir."

"Oh, no, dearie, not at all," contradicted Judith. "Only, you can depend on your looks staying--regular Yale. There, that's a joke. Jane Allen has Yale locks of copper and--iron. Warranted not to yield, nor break, nor open without the registered key. But I know, Janie, you will like your bag. I was no end disappointed not to bring it along with me."

"But it is rather nice to have one surprise saved," Jane insisted. "We have been using up a lot of joys lately, don't you think?"

"Yes, we have been joying extravagantly," agreed Judith. "But Wellington has a reserve stock, you know. Just think of our little Helka. Did we decide she had blue or gray eyes?"

"Oh, they must be blue, we have too many grays," Jane replied. "But what concerns me most of all is the adorable task of fitting her out in school togs. Wasn't it lovely dad's scholarship went to a real little--primitive? That is, I suppose she is unspoiled, although how do we know? She may not deign to look at us," and Jane smiled at the incongruity.

"Wouldn't it be a joke," soliloquized Judith. "What if she is a pre-war aristo'? And suppose she only touches Wellington at the extreme corners? Might even be a little nobility snob, for all we know."

"The more fun in store at the discoveries," Jane said. "But I feel she will be just as I picture her. A little blonde, with blue eyes and a name no one can pronounce."

"What does Helka mean?"

"Oh, that is Helen in Polish. As she is a 'Helen' I think she will be pretty. They mostly are," Jane reflected.

"But Helen Bender is a bit cross-eyed," Judith had to recall, whereat they both laughed, for Helen had a trick of blaming her eyes for every school mistake. Her uncertain eyes had stood her in good stead at difficult tests, etc.

"Soon night will be upon us," Judith prophesied, noting the shadows that fell in ripples over the revolving rills. "Just see the sunset. How different from the red blaze we used to have on the Lake."

"And the smoke of the approaching city," Jane reminded. "Shall we get off for a little rest at St. Paul? We can, if you wish."

"When do we get to the great city?"

"To-morrow afternoon. But between here and there we will glimpse the Middle West. Very different from the scenery on the other end of the trip."

"Yes, indeed, but it is all America, so of course we love it," Judith orated. "But, Janie dear, we might lose ourselves in St. Paul. I have heard such horrible tales of the girls at railway stations being picked up by bandits and carried off for ransom," and she doubled up at the joyous thought of such an escapade.

"Well, if you feel that way about it we had best keep to our bunks," Jane decided. "I am acquainted with the station and the big park with the sun dial----"

"And the big dry goods store where you bought my silkies," recalled Judith. "But, Jane dear, perhaps we had better keep to the rail. You know what the Indian woman told us? She might be out there on hand just to work out the fortune."

"Moved and carried that we omit the stop over," Jane answered. "Now, Judy, let us brush up a little. I have a premonition we are going to meet someone very interesting in the dining car. I saw that yellow-haired woman smuggle a little poodle in her hand bag. It will surely be interesting if she carries him into the diner. It always is. The porters know a dog by the bends in the bag. And they go through a regular screen play in getting the lady, the bag, and the poodle out of the car. Dogs must eat in the baggage car. They have a co-operative refectory there."

"Oh, yes, and the yellow-haired lady has some paper plates. I saw her drop a brace of them, and one rolled way down to the young man with the specks. It was too funny to see him jerk up and look. Guess he thought he was having a fit of eye stigmatis," and Judith bit her red lips with the afore-mentioned pearly teeth. "See, the dear boy is reading something like a dictionary. Wonder if he is a new prof going East to try his luck in some co-ed college? Thank goodness we can't get anything like that. The dear old ladies are bad enough, but can you picture Percy handling Mazie?"

"In math for instance," assisted Jane. "I wonder if she will know any more about cubes this year?"

"More likely she has become proficient in cubes for the complexion," Judith put in. "But honestly, Jane, I am so anxious to see them all, good, bad and indifferent, that I would just like to fall asleep and wake up at Wellington. Wouldn't you?"

"Well, I am anxious to get back. But between here and there I hope to pick up a good time or two. Now let's to the primping room. No line there yet. Wait until we get around Chicago. Then we will have to take our turn. I wonder what daddy is doing just now? I always feel a tiny bit lonesome first night----"

"Oh, no, you don't, dearie, as the chorus girls say. It is my special privilege to have the glumps," and Judith's smile, filtering through the alleged gloom made comedy of her words. "There, I had to leave El Capitan just when I passed my first test in serenades, and when I was becoming expert in cowboy phraseology. Fedario admitted I 'sabied' beautifully, and Pedro declared the horses knew my yodel. Then I had to tear myself away for hard work at Wellington!"

"I'll be good," begged off Jane, who realized the effort at regrets was being made to offset her "glumps." Judith would not have Jane other than smiling. "First at the big mirror," as they made for the dressing room. "See the little old lady with the sampler! Let us greet her in passing," whispered the youthful junior.

But the best laid plans of school girls may be upset by the exigencies of rail travel, for in passing the little old lady, both young ladies were all but precipitated into her black silk lap. The apologies that followed served as fitting introduction, with the result of both girls falling victims to the charm of her complaisant culture, rounded out with satisfying years. The little lady was a thoroughbred, an old school new method graduate. And the girls, keen of perception and generous with appreciation, became acquainted at once with a promise of developing interest along the route.

"I am going to be like that when I grow old," predicted Judith. "And I am going to make samplers for--well, maybe for the cowboys of El Capitan! Just now they fill my vision and my vocabulary."

"Judy, do be careful, dear," admonished Jane, "you almost knocked off the--'prof's' glasses," and Jane could not suppress a titter as her chum just escaped the student, her hand bag swinging with an unexpected lurch of the car. It was fun to roll through the aisle, for every step gave the sensation of a sea voyage on land. Only the big velour chairs stood between the travellers and damage to their fellow passengers.

"What a roomy room!" commented Judith, entering the ladies' dressing compartment. "And all to ourselves. I feel almost like dressing for dinner. Do you suppose, Janie, we will meet any interesting--persons at table? I have kept my rainbow georgette waist within call. Shall I don it?"

"As to interesting persons, I expect to spend my time interviewing the specked professor," Jane surprised Judith by declaring. "I feel he can impart information that may be very useful when I tackle my new year stuff. He looks wise enough to possess tabloid codes, and trots, that might put us through the most difficult forensics," said Jane with characteristic deliberation. Of course the threat to take up with the queer looking young student (he was surely a student) was made to tease Judith, who wanted fun and frolic even aboard the Limited.

"As you like," replied Judith, surveying her tall form in its close-fitting blue velveteen. "But I think I shall find the little blonde lady quite talkable. I shall offer to exchange recipes for her shade of hair. I should love to try hers on Marian's."

All of which was pure nonsense really, as neither girl had any idea of speaking to the strangers mentioned.

"I am so glad we wore these gowns," Jane remarked critically. "Most tourists seem to select the very dingiest, drabest, hatefullest old travelling togs, when it is bad enough to look well at the very best, under railroad conditions."

"Yes, that was your happy thought, ma chère. I should have worn the aforesaid hateful thing in tan, if I had not espied your lovely brown velveteen waiting to be donned. That led me to my one best, the blue."

They were all primped and freshened, and now inspecting the result in the long mirror, while the train rumbled and rolled over the hills and valleys leading into the Middle West. Their personally expressed satisfaction at the picture reflected was pardonable, for the two girls, the one light enough to all but blaze, the other dark enough to all but glitter, arms entwined and heads close together, filled the mirror frame with as pretty a study as any artist might wish to paint.

Eventually, out in the car, as the tourists were making their way to the diner, many critical eyes, all of them surely approving, followed the two Wellington girls, Jane and her chum, Judith.

CHAPTER VII--LOST--A GIRL

"What a wonderful sleep!" Jane was just stretching out in her bunk. "I suppose Judy is up and dressed, and interviewing the crew." She pulled the little window curtain back cautiously, and sent her half-opened eyes after the fleeting landscape. "And a lovely day. I am glad of that, for even in a train one enjoys fresh, clean weather." She slipped into the dark blue travelling kimono, and slippers to match, in which Jane might make her way to the dressing room without attracting undue attention. Thus attired she put her hand up to give the curtain of the upper, Judy's berth, a signal yank.

"Judith," she called lightly. "Are you up, Judith?"

No answer. Her chum was, she presumed, dressed and out for exercise. With the convenient little dressing bag Jane hurried off to make her day's toilette, being assured she would meet Judith either on the way to, or in the ladies' room.

But Judith was not in sight, neither along the way nor in the dressing-room. Jane made her toilette in haste, and thus refreshed from the "wonderful sleep" polished off with accessories of the best travelling comforts, she stepped from the compartment.

"Where can Judy be?" she asked herself in some anxiety. Then the entire length of the coach was covered, to make sure the girl had not buried herself deep in a seat beside some new-found acquaintance. But no Judy was to be sighted.

Jane returned to her berth and signalled the porter he might "make it up." At an opportune moment she asked him had he seen her friend.

"No, Miss, that is, not since quite early. She went out to the observation, but I saw her come back. No one out there now," replied the white-linened porter.

The thought of the observation car, with its open-end vestibule gave Jane a little shiver. Of course Judith was accustomed to travel. Nothing could happen to her. Still, where was she?

"I'll take another look in the observation," she remarked. "I fancy she might like to see early morning developing." And Jane left the porter with his tasks.

It seemed everyone was passing into their breakfast with that avidity so marked in hotels and "en routes," when people have so little to think of except eating, drinking and sleeping. Jane felt the call of an appetite herself, but had no thought of going to breakfast without Judith. Where could the girl be? Each probable rendezvous uncovered negatively, added to Jane's momentarily increasing anxiety.

"Strange!" she commented. "Judy is always ready to exchange notes in the morning. She would hardly undertake anything so absorbing as to keep her away all this time. Besides, what could she find engrossing on this Limited?"

Finally realizing she could not find her chum, she sought out her faithful porter. Not delaying to ring the bell, Jane looked about and soon found Alfred (this was his name she overheard) arranging cushions on the rear sofa, for a baby to rest there.

"I can't locate my friend," she began. "Have you seen her?"

"Say, Alf," interrupted another member of the working force coming up from the next car. "I got a--what do you call a sonomballist? The sort that plays baseball in a sound sleep," the black-faced man grinned. "I got a strange lady in a strange place, and she belongs in your car. You got to extract her."

"What--what you--all mean, Ferd?" asked Alf, while Jane waited apprehensively.

"You come along wiff me and I'll demonstrate," proposed Ferd, otherwise Ferdinand. "I'se been argufying wiff de lady, didn't like to shake her zactly. But she don't pear to want to come back to you, Alf. She has took a notion to me." He grinned and chuckled in the good nature characteristic of the well-trained Pullman porter.

Jane listened with increasing anxiety. It might really be Judith, but where was she?

"What you asked for, please?" Alfred inquired of Jane. "Ferdinand has no 'cuse to interrupt," he apologized.

"Oh, that was all right," Jane quickly assured him. "I wonder if he may have found my--friend?"

"Not likely a young lady," said Alfred with a strong emphasis on young. As if an old lady might be suspected of anything queer, but that a young miss would assuredly hardly be so careless.

"But my friend is very absent minded." Jane prepared him. "She does queer things through forgetfulness."

"Can you come right now?" insisted the waiting Ferd to Jane's porter. "I'se got to get rid of this--lady somehow."

"I'll go too, if I may?" timidly inquired Jane. "I have lost a friend" (this to Ferd). "She is very absent minded."

"Laikly she is my--discovery," ventured the colored man striving to be polite and finding it difficult to treat the situation seriously. "Come right along."

At the other end of the car Jane stood stock still, as she read the sign "Gentlemen Smoking." But Ferd promptly assured her.

"Not a soul in here but the lady. Not a man could get in, and there was some kicking. All right for ladies to smoke. Lots of 'em do, but they has to have their own private quarters." He was opening the door of the smoking room with that caution usually displayed if a cat is expected to jump. Jane followed, and once within the room she sprang to the curled up figure, sleeping peacefully, in the big cushioned chair. It was Judith!

"Judith!" Jane called. "Judy, wake up! Come!"

The unconscious girl slowly--too slowly, came back to the realm of directed thought. She was awake at last.

"Why--Jane--" she drawled. "What's the fuss? I was dreaming about wonderful cigars."

Both porters stepped back respectfully--or to laugh safely. Dreaming of cigars appealed to their sense of humor.

"Judith--this is the gentlemen's smoking room," Jane breathed, trying hard to drag the still drowsy girl to her feet. "How ever did you get in here?"

By this time Judith realized something was wrong. She gathered the folds of her Burgundy robe tight around her, and tried to inflict a severe look on the giggling porters.

"You sure did hol' de fort, Miss," Ferd insisted on saying. "The gent-men had to go without their smoke this morning."

Too embarrassed for further conversation the girls stole out of the usurped room. Just at the little turn in the aisle, the very narrow place where a crowd is always trying to squeeze by at once, they encountered a group of would-be smokers ready to defend their rights. They were talking none too meekly, and seeing the girl still in negligee one had the poor taste to remark: "There she is. Some sleeper!"

Judith blushed to the roots of her dark hair, but Jane glanced at the bounder defiantly. Didn't he have manners enough to respect a girl who was just absent minded?

"A good thing they had to--fast a little," Jane whispered in Judith's ear. "It won't hurt them any. They smoke enough now to fumigate the car with the fumes they carry out of that room. Pretty room, isn't it?" She smiled to give back Judith's assurance.

"Oh, I am so embarrassed," murmured Judith. "And have I actually been sleeping there, and keeping that raft of men outside?"

"Oh, yes, dear, but that is nothing to worry about," the kind-hearted Jane protested. "In war times they had to go without smoking or should have. Now they can't seem to live a moment on the train, without the company of their cigars. Do let us hurry in to breakfast!"

But even the reliable good nature and love of humor, characteristic of Judith was some time in returning to the very much embarrassed girl.

CHAPTER VIII--NEW YORK AT LAST

"If there is one thing I like more than all the other things about a long railway journey," said Judith, as they alighted at the great Metropolis terminal, "it is the end. I love to get off."

"I rather agree with you," Jane almost sighed, for the trip from Montana, while pleasantly varied with incidents of interest, was really all tuned and keyed up to the actual pleasure of reaching New York.

"How good it is to be back, after all," pursued Judith. "I hope we will have no trouble in finding Mrs. Weatherbee. She is so eminently systematic, as our train was on time, she ought to be in sight now."

"Oh, I am sure she will be here," Jane added, as they edged along with the throng, threading their way out into the open space under the great glass canopy of the New York Central. The magnitude of the building seemed to dwarf the lines and group of persons, filing in and out, and coming and going--as the old man said, like people without any homes.

"There she is!" exclaimed Jane as she caught sight of the dignified Mrs. Weatherbee, director of Wellington. "And she has a young girl with her."

"Our Helka!" exclaimed Judith, jamming into a haughty woman with the perpetual poodle under her arm. "Oh, I am sure that is our little artist," as the slight young girl, in very dark costume advanced with Mrs. Weatherbee.

There was no time for a reply from Jane, for the smiling Wellington lady and her companion now caught sight of the girls, and were advancing quickly.

"Just in time," Mrs. Weatherbee exclaimed with more precision than originality. "How splendidly you both look!"

Then the usual hand shaking, and exchange of courtesies included the introduction to Miss Helka Podonsky.

So the girls at last beheld the object of their long outstanding guesses and conjectures!

Yes, Helka was pretty--she was different, and she was surely attractive. Her hair tangled around her ears and made the most adorable little puffs. Its shade was dark, not black, but more dark than brown. All of these details were easily observed, and the girls absorbed them, but the color of her eyes--Jane thought they blue, Judith thought them brown, and neither knew how to classify the flashes and "volts" the little stranger shot out from under the long curly lashes. But that she was lovely each silently agreed.

"This is our friend who is coming with us to Wellington," Mrs. Weatherbee explained, in that formal way "the faculty" always take to say unnecessary things. "She is delighted with the prospect," another superfluous banality.

"Oh, yes, it will be very--nice," spoke Helka, and her accent betrayed the slightest foreign tinge. Her words seemed carefully chosen, but she did not hiss her "s" nor choke her "e." Jane was glad the voice and accent would not excite undue prejudice.

"I am sure it will be perfectly jolly," Judith hurried to add, and in her effort to speak clearly she chose the very word a stranger might not understand. "Jolly" was not included in the usual English phrases given in foreign school text books.

"Yes?" Helka ventured to answer, and her rising inflection might easily span a sea of doubt.

"Oh, it will be--delightful," Jane took great pains to qualify. She had no intention of confusing Helka, and wished above all things to impress her with a sense of companionship.

Yet there was a certain strain apparent. Helka did not "fall on her knees, or neck" after the manner of the proteges in children's books, neither did "her eyes fill with tears of silent appreciation." Nevertheless the three girls, with their college director, were going through that process of self consciousness bordering on embarrassment.

"Can't we go to the rest room for a few moments?" asked Jane. "I think we will have a better chance to get acquainted sitting down," she declared.

Quick to catch the possible humor of this remark Helka smiled broadly, and the set of teeth she exposed caused the girls again to exchange knowing glances. Now, Judith had wonderful teeth. In fact, she might claim championship in the tooth beauty contest, did Wellington carry such a sport, but Helka's! They were so small, so even and so white, matched pearls indeed. Thoughts of the pure grain foods of Poland filtered through Jane's mind, while Judith wondered about Polish dentifrice.

All this time it never occurred to either of the Wellington girls, that the stranger might be having an equally interesting time analyzing and cataloging them, and their characteristics. Egotism has various methods of taking care of her own.

In the big, leathered rest room, a comfortable corner was available, and here our quartette soon ensconced themselves. Mrs. Weatherbee really looked quite human, Judith was deciding, her Oxford tailored suit being sufficiently de luxe to be spelled "tailleur." It was nobby, to take up a word from the English allies, and not give all the credit to the French.

"Now, my dears," spoke the model, "I have a plan to unfold to you. Helka wishes to stay in some private place, that is, she does not wish to get into any very public place."

She stopped, for Helka was silently inferring so much that her attitude demanded attention. She was sort of shaking her head and biting her red lips and flashing her unclassified eyes.

"Not a lovely hotel?" asked Jane in surprise. She had really counted on showing this little stranger life in a big New York hotel.

"Oh, no, please not. No hotel. I would not like that. There are so many--men and women." Helka was almost shuddering, and Judith instantly sensed the mystery promised about the Polish girl's antecedents. Jane, acting in the capacity of hostess, immediately agreed to shun all hotels.

"I wanted to tell you," said Mrs. Weatherbee, "that for the present I have arranged with a former member of the staff of Wellington, a retired chaperon, to take you young ladies in her charge in New York. As Miss Allen had informed me she wished to stay in the city for some days, I thought it my duty to see that you were all safely--chaperoned." She smiled humanly, Judith admitted, but visions of a retired chaperon did not exactly forecast a very jolly good time. Even a working "nurse maid," as the attendants were sometimes facetiously styled, would be better than one who was old enough to be retired. Jane was struggling with similar fears.

"She has quite an apartment," went on the matron. "In fact, she has been entertaining some social service students who take care of themselves in her apartment, and I thought that would be just the thing for you three little girls."

"I am sure it will be!" Jane exclaimed, now seeing light through the clouds. "I have always longed to try housekeeping as the college settlement girls do, and it may give us valuable experience."

"Oh, glorious!" exclaimed Judith. "I vote to be--parlor maid."

"It would be very nice," ventured Helka, "if we could have a very small house and our own--piano."

"Oh, of course, Helka, dear," Mrs. Weatherbee hurried to inject. "You must have access to a piano. You cannot be deprived of your music."

The luminous eyes flashed their appreciation at this, and Jane felt as if even a rest room was quite inadequately furnished, with no piano, at that moment, in sight. This little artist should have some sort of pocket edition to carry around with her. She was different and artistic and her moods should be humored. Of a certainty they would go at once to the apartment with the home cured piano, as Judith called any instrument not installed in a school room.

"Miss Jordan expects us," said Mrs. Weatherbee, "I was sure a good cup of real tea would refresh you both after your journey." She picked up the flat brief case Judith always carried in lieu of a suit case. Jane adjusted her own club bag, preparatory for the start. Helka insisted on taking the brace of umbrellas. So the little party wended their way to the surface car, Jane naturally falling in step with Helka and Judith trotting along with Mrs. Weatherbee.

"Adorable!" Judith at last had a chance to exclaim.

"I knew you would like her," smiled Mrs. Weatherbee. "She is a wonderful girl. And she has such an interesting history."

Just as it had all been planned!

"Jane's luck," commented Judith. "Mrs. Weatherbee, we are going to make Jane Allen, Center, this year. And we are going to make our team known all over the college circuit. Basketball is an American sport, and we are back from the war now with reconstruction energy."

"I believe you," assented the matron, and her tone implied satisfaction.

Jane was meanwhile becoming agreeably acquainted with Helka.

CHAPTER IX--GIRLS' LIFE A LA MODE

Housekeeping, however irksome when a positive duty, is always a delight when "tried on" in miniature.

So it was when the Wellington girls installed themselves in Miss Jordan's apartment, they had no idea of the novelty in store for them. The house was one of the old mansions now falling into the shadow of the Village. The Village, we recall, is that part of New York City where artists of various sorts congregate, and live the life they term Bohemian. Incidentally, there are many within the village who will never have any claim to the title artist--other than to have possessed the ambition to be so classified, but like half the aspirants for honors, they may aspire, but not conspire, as they do not work honestly to achieve the place they pretend to appropriate. But our girls did not go within the village limits; they were just at its "gates" and so had an opportunity of observing the interesting types of girls and young women passing in and out, affecting the Bohemian.

Long-haired men and short-haired women. Velvet-jacketed men and cloth-upholstered women--such persistent contradictions lending a peculiar picturesqueness to the otherwise prosaic Metropolis.

A kitchenette and two sleeping rooms had been assigned to the Wellingtons by Miss Jordan, the larger dining room being shared by two groups. Miss Jordan explained she had found the individual kitchen indispensable, for all girls had their own ideas about kitchen work, while a dining room might be made communal, many persons having similar table habits, obviously. The living room was delightful. A long, high ceiled drawing room originally. Miss Jordan had preserved the splendor of the crystal chandelier, and the glory of the hand carved marble mantel. Here all the girls were wont to congregate in their evenings, and those of them who had the opportunity came together around the square piano or curled themselves up with books in the bay window's cushions in the late afternoons.

The clientele was sufficiently varied to be interesting, at the same time Miss Jordan personally vouched for the general standing of each of her paying guests. In fact, the rendezvous for young girls who might be in New York temporarily, and without personal chaperons, was a real innovation, and it did fill a perfectly legitimate long-felt want.

"Home was never like this," declared Judith, passing the chocolates to a little dark-haired art student, who had just come in from a morning's work in a co-operative studio. The art student called herself Anaa Kole, and just why she insisted on the second "a" to her otherwise plain Ana had not yet been discovered by Judith. It looked to her like a waste of type, that could not be vocally made use of.

"Miss Jordan is so motherly," admitted Anaa. "I sometimes wonder what I should have done if I had not found her apartment. I came here because my college directed me to."

"That is just what happened to me," Judith declared. "I came here because Wellington actually toted me to the doorstep. Have some more chocolates, do!"

"Oh, thank you, I do like sweets when I am tired. What are you studying?"

"Here? Nothing especially. We are just getting ready for our junior year. All but Miss Podonsky. She is just beginning."

"Isn't she dear? But why does she run every time the bell rings?"

"Does she? I hadn't noticed," prevaricated Judith. "She is a little shy, being a stranger, I suppose."

"And she never practices when anyone is around. I have so wished to hear her play her violin. I am sure she is a wonder at it. But every time I do have the good luck to come in while she is playing she stops instantly as I enter."

"Don't you think most geniuses are peculiar?" parried Judith. "Helen will not play for us unless--well, unless Miss Allen especially requests it. She adores Jane."

"I don't blame her," admitted Anaa. "I am charmed with her myself. She is one of the girls with rare character who is not forever advertising it. When I came in with wet feet the other night she did not insist on me draining her chocolate pot. Most girls do, and I abhor hot drinks for wet feet."

Judith laughed. Anaa was naive, if a trifle conspicuous with her bobbed hair. Of course bobbed hair was so comfy, and so becoming, too bad it was not the general style, mused Judith, patting her own heavy coil, that would slip down her neck every time she attempted to relax outside of bed quilts.

"I shall almost hate to leave for school," Judith supplied. "It has been so jolly here."

"I do not find New York exactly a playground," Miss Kole followed, "but, then, I am studying."

"Of course that's different. We are shopping, shopping and after meals shopping again. I wonder if there are any bargains left? I adore buying pretty underlies, but I am not so keen on the practicals. But my friend Jane has set up enough stuff to make a hope chest for all Wellington."

"She is from the West, you said?"

"Yes, from Montana. But that does not mean that she has never seen pretty things before and is overdoing it," Judith hurried to qualify in justice to Jane.

"Oh, of course not. I did not mean to infer that," Miss Kole apologized. "But I do think Westerners, as a rule, are so much more generous, and so much more enthusiastic than the cold Easterners. I am from New England, and all I can remember of holidays around home is that the rag rugs were taken off the carpets, and the powdered sugar sprinkled over the doughnuts. Life in my home was always a question of rivalry in economy. When I came here I set out for days to buy every imaginable sort of food I had been reading labels of all my life. Of course at college I had all I wanted, but even there it was not on my own initiative. I longed to find out how it felt to be free to buy without a pencil, and paper and premium list."

"Oh, don't call your home town such hard names," Judith put in kindly. "I am quite sure it has made you very dependable. I wouldn't wonder if a term there would fit me for life with much better qualifications than I can now boast of. But here come Jane and Helen." (They had Americanized the Helka.) "And now more bundles."

"Oh, the darlingest tams," announced Jane, dropping down on the big sofa. "I just had to carry them home to show you. Couldn't wait for delivery. See Anaa," to Miss Kole, "aren't they perfectly dear?"

"Oh, this year's tams are really classic," contributed the art student.

Judith already had the hunter's green, soft velvet tam on her frowsy head. "Jane, which is mine?"

"Well, I did not know what you would like best with your riding habit. It would have been too uncertain to guess at the green, and the brown was rather dark, so I thought perhaps this burgundy would go."

"Stunning, perfectly so!" exclaimed Judith. "I have always wanted wine color and been afraid to try it. Isn't it wonderful?" And the lovely soft little cap was coaxed to a proper angle on the dark head.

"And this is Helen's," Jane shook from its wrappers another cap of a deep violet hue. Helen blushed prettily as Judith insisted on trying it on her curly head.

"Oh, look, girls!" Judith suddenly exclaimed, grasping Helen and swinging her around unceremoniously. "Now I know the color of her eyes! They are pure violet."

The unexpected exclamation, and the energy of Judith's swing gave Helen a perceptible start. For a moment she seemed about to dash off. She changed color from flush to pallor and was surely trembling. Then realizing it was all a joke, she quickly regained her composure, but not before the girls had noted her curious attitude and alarm. Even Jane, slow to criticise, could not but admit Helen was frightened, and at such a trifle!

Why was she always so fearful? What was there for her to be so markedly nervous about?

That she had asked, and even insisted that the Polish name of Helka Podonsky be changed to the American substitute, Helen Powderly, had seemed reasonable enough to the girls, when just after their arrival in New York Helen explained that name meant "power" and while the "sky" stood for distinction in Poland, it would mean nothing but possible ridicule in her school life. To this Jane and Judith had assented. Perhaps it would be best, they agreed, not to antagonize the less broadminded girls with the foreign title. Also, Helen had so earnestly wished it. All this flashed before their minds now, when a simple girlish exclamation caused a panic of fear. It must be nerves, of course. Perhaps Helen had studied too hard in qualifying for the scholarship!

Girls are often jumpy, but not often quite so easily overcome, Jane thought.

"But what shall we do with so many hats?" asked Helen naïvely recovering herself. "We shall be at school always."

"Oh, not half of always," replied Jane. "You see, Helen, we must ride, I haven't told you about your horse (the violet eyes widened with pleasure) and then," continued Jane, "we are going on all sorts of hikes and hunts and outside jaunts. We are going to beg you in as a junior. Sometimes the juniors, that's Judith and me, are allowed to have what we call pupils. It isn't really catalogued but we occasionally get a younger girl to go with us, so that we may try out our knowledge on her."

"Yes, and my particular stunt is," Judith acclaimed, trying her tam at another angle, "to get a girl who knows more than I do, and let her try out her knowledge on me. Last year I found a perfect wizard in Meta Noon. She knew more about bi-ology than I shall ever have a chance to learn, and in the woods--what Meta didn't tell me about queer bugs, and buzzards and beetles and bombus and--well, I was buzzing for a week after one hike."

"After all," sighed Anaa, "school days have a charm. But we never realize it until it is gone."

"Then of what value is the charm?" asked Jane.

"Exactly like cutting a tooth--only good after all the cutting is done," decided Judith.

"We take no note of time but from its loss, you know the poet says," followed Jane, "and I often think of the concise truth of that statement. We do not even know it is the hour until the hour is past. Oh, la-la! but we are getting philosophical. Personally, I am more interested in the kitchenette at this moment. Judith, it is your turn to do the K. P."

"What ever branch of the A. E. F. instituted the Kitchen Police should have been tried by court martial," blurted Judith. "The K. P. is a duty for the enemy, not for the home guard," and she dove for the divan and the chocolate crumbs.

"Oh, do let me get the dinner again," begged Helen. "You know I love to. The little place is like a--baby play house."

"Oh, yes, Helen, do run along and play," promptly agreed Judith. "As it is my turn, I give you full permission----"

"Judy Stearns," called Jane in mock severity. "You are an awful fraud. Helen is too good to you. I shall make you do guard duty this evening when we are out in the park. Besides, I am not going to give you your surprise."

She got no further. The tall girl bounced over the room after Jane, who was ducking nimbly only to be finally enmeshed in cushions and portieres.

"Will you give it to me?" commanded Judith. "Or shall I wrest it from you! And what is it and where is it? Maybe a telegram, summoning me to my jolly cowboys' wedding or funeral. Oh, shall I ever be able to forget my jolly cowboys?"

"Easy, girls, easy," cautioned Anaa, "Miss Jordan is putty in our hands, until we attempt football with her cushions. Then she turns alabaster. Don't, Judith, it is a lot better to 'don't' than to 'did.' Take the advice of a good friend."

At this the chase was halted. Jane was panting from the shaking and choking Judith had administered, while Judith was looking for the ever fractious hairpins, the same being the last of a precious set of shell pins imported from the Western coast. Judith and hairpins were always at painful odds.

"Judy," said Jane seriously, "do you realize our days are flying and we will be due at Wellington very soon?"

"Oh, Jane Allen! You horrid girl! Can't I have a day's peace here in this wonderful New York without having Wellington poked at me?" and Judith facetiously jabbed at her eyes. "I have a very good mind to play hookey."

Anaa had slipped out of the room, leaving Jane and Judith together.

"Jane," whispered Judith, "whatever do you suppose makes Helen so nervous about strangers? She is positively timid in crowds. And when a man with queer whiskers, the Russian kind, brushed by us to-day on the avenue I could feel her shiver. Now, Janie, you do not suppose we are harboring a runaway, or anything like that?"

"Why, Judy, how foolish. You know Mrs. Weatherbee would not have agreed that father's scholarship be given Helen if she had not first carefully examined all her credentials. You know Mrs. Weatherbee and care. A regular text book. But I will admit, the child is afraid in public places. Much as I like it here, I should have been glad of a week in a big hotel just for the experience, if we could have induced her to go with us. It is a little queer, still Helen is lovely, don't you think so?"

"Too sweet for classification. Look at her now doing my chores," and Judith laughed. "Oh, Janie, dear, it is fun to be here, and to have your purse at the back of it. I never had so much spot cash in all my life as I have seen you flourish since we located at the Jordan apartment. It perfectly scares me."