"Only some bread, some lump sugar and a tin of milk, please," said Alec modestly. Amanda gave a sudden exclamation of joy. "Then we won't be back to lunch,--oh, Blue Bonnet, that lets us out to-day!" They fell upon each other rapturously. "I think we are the ones who should rejoice," said Kitty; but her remark met with the silent scorn it deserved. They mustered a troop of twelve, all mounted, for Knight's picnic. Riding by twos, they cantered decorously as long as the eyes of their elders followed their course; but when a turn in the road freed them from observation, there was a spurring and an urging of the wiry ponies, and away they went, recking little of the grade whether up or down. It became a game of follow-my-leader, with Knight and Blue Bonnet heading the procession and putting their horses through a performance that would have lamed anything but a Western cow-pony. Knight finally led the way to one of the "race-paths" that abound in the hilly regions of Texas, and there began a tournament that for years lived in Sarah's memory as the most reckless exhibition of daring ever seen outside a circus-ring. "Who made this race-track?" she asked Knight in one of the infrequent pauses in the performance. "Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met this assertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long, edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably to show the hand of man in its creation. "It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "--I swear it by the mane of my milk-white steed!" Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskin pony he rode, and then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith in people imposed upon. Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in Senorita Blake's estimation," he told her. "What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable. "She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm, "--but not exciting." Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask that. "She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible." "And that?" "Having been brought up in Texas!" If Knight had expected a blush to follow his outspoken compliment he was disappointed. Blue Bonnet's hearty laugh showed a very healthy absence of self-consciousness in her make-up. "My Aunt Lucinda thinks that is my very worst drawback," she declared; and then chirping to Firefly, she was off at a break-neck pace, hat bobbing, brown braid flying, her eyes alight with the excitement of the race. [Illustration: "THEY ALL GATHERED GYPSY-FASHION ABOUT THE FIRE."]