good spirits. The wonders of the wild country—so much different from anything the Easterners had seen before—deeply impressed Ruth and her friends. The routine work of the ranch, however, interested them more. Not only Tom and Bob, but their sisters and the other girls, found the free, out-of-door life of the range and corral a never-failing source of delight.
Ruth herself was becoming a remarkably good horsewoman. Freckles carried her many miles over the range and Jane Ann Hicks was scarcely more bold on pony-back than was the girl from the Red Mill.
As for the cowboys of the Silver outfit, they admitted that the visitors were "some human," even from a Western standpoint.
"Then friends o' yourn, Miss Jinny," Jimsey said, to Old Bill's niece, "ain't so turrible 'Bawston' as some tenderfoots I've seen." ("Boston," according to Jimsey, spelled the ultra-East and all its "finicky" ways!) "I'm plum taken with that Fielding gal—I sure am. And I believe old Ike, here, is losin' his heart to her. Old Lem Dickson's Sally better bat her eyes sharp or Ike'll go up in the air an' she'll lose him."
It was true that the foreman was less bashful with Ruth than with any of the other girls. Ruth knew how to put him at his ease. Every spare hour Bashful Ike had he put in teaching Ruth to
