The reader may be sure that all Tavia said was to Dorothy’s glory. She had little need to explain to Garry Knapp what a beautiful character Dorothy Dale possessed. Tavia had told about Dorothy’s family, her Aunt Winnie’s wealth, the fortunes Major Dale now possessed both in the East and West, and the fact that when Dorothy came of age, at twenty-one, she would be wealthy in her own right. She had said all this to a young man who was struggling along as a cowpuncher on a Western ranch, and whose patrimony was a piece of rundown land that he could sell but for a song, as he admitted himself. “And no chorus to it!” Tavia thought. “I’m a bonehead!” she suddenly thought fiercely. “Nat would say my noodle is solid ivory. I know now what was the matter with Garry Knapp that evening. I know why he rushed up to me and asked for Dorothy, and was what the novelists call ‘distrait’ during our dinner. Oh, what a worm I am! A miserable, squirmy worm! Ugh!” and the conscience-stricken girl fairly shuddered at her own reflection in the mirror and turned away quickly so that Dorothy should not see her features. “It’s—it’s the most _wonderful_ thing. And it began right under my nose, my poor little ‘re-trousered’ nose, as Joe called it the other day, and I didn’t really see it! I thought it was just a fancy on Dorothy’s part! And I never thought of Garry Knapp’s side of it at all! Oh, my heaven!” groaned Tavia, deep in her own soul. “Why wasn’t I born with some good sense instead of good looks? I—I’ve spoiled my chum’s life, perhaps. Goodness! it can’t be so bad as that. “Of course, Garry Knapp is just the sort of fellow who would raise a barrier of Dorothy’s riches between them. Goodness me!” added the practical Tavia, “I’d like to see any barrier of wealth stop _me_ if I wanted a man. I’d shin the wall in a hurry so as to be on the same side of it as he was.” She would have laughed at this fancy had she not taken a look at Dorothy’s face again. “Good-night!” she shouted into her chum’s ear, hugged her tight, kissed her loudly, and ran away into her own room. Once there, she cried all the time she was disrobing, getting into her lacy nightgown, and pulling down the bedclothes. Then she did not immediately go to bed. Instead, she tiptoed back to the connecting door and closed it softly. She turned on the hanging electric light over the desk. “I’ll do it!” she said, with determined mien. “I’ll write to Lance Petterby.” And she did so. CHAPTER XV THE SLIDE ON SNAKE HILL Joe and Roger marched down at an early breakfast hour from the upper regions of the big white house, singing energetically if not melodiously a pæan of joy: “‘The frog he would a-wooing go—— Bully for you! Bully for all! The frog he would a-wooing go—— Bully for all, we say!’”