Darkness dropped softly in the timber. They heard a distant splash where a muskrat had taken to the water. Every one wished solemnly by the evening star. And two of the wishes came true in record time. The Captain wished that he might find the son so long lost to him. Katy wished--she didn't quite put the wish into words--but she did want Ernest to have what he wanted. One by one the other stars twinkled forth and the darkness deepened till their faces were dim, white blurs, and the girls' pink-and-blue dresses faded into patches of dusk in the blackness. Fireflies winked in the gloom. At the Captain's suggestion, Katy and Ernest rested on their oars. They stopped singing and listened to the night's silences--silences broken by rustling movements from a thicket on the farther bank or by eery creakings of the branches overhead. The little group felt vaguely the bigness of things, though no one but the Captain knew exactly why. It was ten o'clock before they went back to the house. Wing had performed a miracle in the meantime; the boy's suits were not only dried, but neatly pressed. Mrs. Morton let them all sleep late the next morning in view of the long journey ahead for Ernest and the girls. Poor Sherm found this last day trying. His father's health was not improving and a fear lay close in his heart that he should never see him again. It was almost more than he could bear to hear the girls talk about going home. He eased the ache by keeping at work. Dr. Morton had already initiated him into Ernest's duties. The others were too busy to think much about Sherm but Chicken Little, who sat beside him at the table, noticed that he scarcely tasted his dinner. She started to remark about it, but a glance at Sherm's drawn face warned her in time. Presently, she had a gracious thought. "Sherm, let's ride Caliph and Calico in to the train, then the others won't be so crowded and Marian and Jilly can go, too." Sherm somehow felt better immediately. The brisk gallop they took at starting helped still more. Sunflowers and golden rod lined the roadside for miles; brown cat tails nodded above the swales. A bobolink, swaying on a weed stalk near by, answered Sherm's chirrup to the ponies with a volley of golden notes. "Chicken Little," he remarked, apropos of nothing, after they had ridden a few miles, "you are a mighty comfortable person to have 'round." "Maybe you won't think so in a day or two. I shall be so lonesome I may be tempted to follow you about like Huz and Buz." "You can't scare me that way, Chicken Little, I think the ranch is going to be a pretty loose fit for all of us for a few days. But your school begins about the middle of September, doesn't it? That will help."