One morning Rob asked his sister to put up some lunch for Jones and himself because they were going down the valley on business. Harry put up the lunch and stood watching while they mounted and rode off. Among the string of horses which Jones had brought in were two well broken to saddle, a black and a sorrel, and to-day the boys each rode one of them. These two horses had run loose for so long a time that they were as frisky and spirited as the colts. As the little party swept away across the wild prairie the girl longed ardently to be with them. She liked to ride--Rob had been teaching her--and it did seem hard that she should not be allowed to go along on such trips as these, simply because she was not considered a proper person to share a secret. Hurt pride mingled with resentment struggled together in her breast. It was hard to think that she was still outside Rob's deeper interests. Her life had, for the moment, lost its zest. She finished tidying up the tent, then went down to the garden determined to be interested in her own tasks, for the planting and weeding of the vegetables that Rob, overwhelmed in the press of work, had been forced to leave to her. She put in several rows of root vegetables, a second planting of peas and beans and was trying to feel enthusiastic about planting corn when a soft crooning call made her turn. At first nothing living was to be seen. Then a quiver amongst the tall weeds and grass along the stream caught her eye, and there came into sight a sage hen leading her brood of five chicks. Advancing sedately, craning her long neck to keep watch on every side, pausing to strip the seeds from various weeds, crooning her furtive call to her young, the mother bird moved upstream toward the cool shade of the cañon. Suddenly her black, inquiring eye met Harry's friendly but eager stare. For an instant the hen stood motionless, her gray-brown coloring blending her confusingly with the sand and sagebrush of the hillside behind her. Then, with a short, whistling call she dropped low and Harry saw her and the baby chickens slither off toward the willows. With a sudden determination to follow and have a closer look at these, her nearest neighbors, Harry dropped her hoe in the fence corner, shut 'Thello inside the garden so he could not chase the birds, and slipped quietly up the draw after them. CHAPTER IV For some minutes Harry walked along the stream without seeing or hearing the sage hen. But this bit of discouragement only increased her interest. How could they hide so quickly without flying? The chicks were too young to fly and surely the hen would not desert them! No, there they were now!