Blue Bonnets Ranch Party | Page 8

over the ranch," replied Uncle Joe. "I saw them both headed for the stables a while ago."
"I'm glad they're going to get on well," said Blue Bonnet in a relieved tone. "I was afraid Don would be jealous." She gave a clear loud whistle, and a moment later the two animals came racing across the yard, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to be first up the steps. Blue Bonnet stooped and picked up the smaller dog, fondling him and saying foolish things. Don, the big collie, gave a low whine and looked up at her piteously.
"Not jealous, did you say?" laughed Uncle Joe.
Blue Bonnet patted the collie's head. "Good dog," she said soothingly. "You're too big to be carried, Don." Then she put down Solomon and bending put a hand under Don's muzzle; his soft eyes met hers affectionately. "I'm going to put Solomon in your charge--understand? You must warn him about snakes, Don,--and don't let the coyotes get him." A sharp bark from Don Blue Bonnet was satisfied to take for an affirmative answer, and with another pat sent him off for the night.
"Has Alec some place to sleep?" inquired Blue Bonnet, her hospitable instincts suddenly and rather tardily aroused.
"Benita has put him in the ell by me. He's there now, unpacking to-night so that he won't have to waste any time to-morrow. I never saw a boy so keen about ranch-life as he is. He seems to look on himself as a sort of pioneer in a new country," Uncle Joe chuckled.
"It's all new to him," rejoined Blue Bonnet. "This is his first glimpse of the West. I hope he gets strong and well out here--General Trent worries so about him."
"It will be the making of him," Uncle Cliff assured her. "He'll go back to Massachusetts as husky as Pinto Pete, if he'll just learn to live outdoors, and leave books alone for a while."
"I'm going to hide every book he has brought with him," declared Blue Bonnet. "And Sarah Blake will need looking after--she has the book habit, too."
Uncle Joe shook his head. "It seems to be a germ disease they have back there in Massachusetts. Glad you didn't catch it, Blue Bonnet."
"Oh, I'm immune!" laughed she, as she said good-night and went to seek Benita.
She found her old nurse in the kitchen, resting after an arduous day. Gertrudis, the famous cook "loaned" for the summer by a neighboring ranch, was mixing something mysterious in a wooden bowl, while her granddaughter Juanita, a nut-brown beauty, pirouetted about the room, showing off her new rosettes in a Spanish dance.
Blue Bonnet clapped her hands. "That's a pretty step, Juanita,--will you teach it to me some day?"
"Si, Se?orita," she assented eagerly, showing all her white teeth in a delighted smile. "It is the cachucha."
"The girls will all want to learn it," Blue Bonnet assured her. She draw Benita into the dining-room and then gave her a hearty squeeze. "Everything's just lovely, you old dear," she cried. "The girls are crazy about the nursery, and they think you are the dearest ever!"
Benita's wrinkled face beamed. "If the Se?orita is pleased, old Benita is happy," she said deprecatingly.
"Benita, I missed you dreadfully, off there in Woodford. I had to make my own bed and do my own mending!"
Benita gave an odd little sound of distress. "But Benita will do it now," she urged anxiously.
"You'll have to get around Grandmother then, Benita,--I can't."
"The Se?ora is kind--" Benita began.
"--but firm," added Blue Bonnet. "I leave her to you!"
It was so late before the girls finally settled down into their respective corners, that it seemed only about five minutes before they were awakened at daybreak by the most terrific tumult that ever smote the ears of slumbering innocence.
Bang, bang! Boom, crash, bang! Shouts, yells, wild Comanche-like cries rent the ear, and punctuated the incessant booming that shook even the thick adobe walls of the nursery.
Four terrified faces were raised simultaneously from four white beds, and four voices in chorus whispered: "What is it?" No one dared stir.
Suddenly the door was burst open and in sprang a white-robed figure, hair flying, eyes wide with terror. Straight to Blue Bonnet's bed the spectre flew and leaped into the middle of it with a plump that made its occupant gasp.
"Oh, girls, it's Indians!" wailed the newcomer; and then they saw that it was Sarah.
"Indians?" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "There aren't any Indians around here. Get off my chest and I'll go see."
Casting off the bed-clothes and the startled Sarah at the same time, with one spring Blue Bonnet was at the window. What she saw there was hardly reassuring; the whole space between the house and the stables seemed to be filled with a howling, whirling mass of men. In the gray half-light of early dawn she