On Bud’s explaining the situation to Christine she agreed to retain the watch-dog, as Alison called her, and Sofia took up her abode until some better arrangement could be made. The old creature occupied the small room below stairs and spent most of her time in mumbling over her beads and in preparing tortillas, in which employment she was very expert, turning her little cakes so rapidly that Alison declared she saved up all her energies for this one performance. It was some time after the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma before Ira was well enough to rejoin his company. Meanwhile, more than once, he passed by the Rosses to visit the wilder region where Cy Sparks had his home. Not that he received much encouragement from Cyrus, rather because of the contrary. The other lads in the neighborhood also seemed suddenly to acquire a desire for traveling the road leading to Cyrus Sparks’s, and the consequence was that Cyrus found himself obliged to dispense a greater hospitality than had ever been his wont or his pleasure. He began to wonder if, after all, he had made a good bargain in taking to his home this daughter who, instead of helping him to better economies, only increased his expenditures. Hospitality of the largest sort was the order of the country. Louisa’s fame as a cook began to spread abroad, and it was taken as a matter of course by the young swains that they would be welcome whenever they should choose to drop in for a meal at Cy Sparks’s. Most of them were too obtuse to notice Cyrus’s black looks and his failure to invite them to come again; they only perceived Louisa’s smiles and her savory meals. “It jes natchelly does me good to see old Cy squirm when he has to set out a meal fer half a dozen of us,” said Ira, as he and Bud rode away after a long afternoon with Louisa. “Nothin’ pleases me better then to see him riled.” “He’s a wary old fox,” returned Bud, “and I wouldn’t put it past him to do any sort of low down trick about that gal. He’s got a taste of makin’ money, and he don’t stand on the order of gittin’ it. Betwixt you and me and the gate-post I believe, and always shall believe, he had somethin’ to do with that little affair of John’s hosses and I ain’t so dead sure he didn’t hev somethin’ to do with Steve Hayward’s disappearance.” “Sho!” exclaimed Ira. “What started you thinkin’ that?”