In the rush of summer work, concern for her school naturally waned. Moreover, she soon began to look forward with interest to the arrival of the Eldredges. Several times she went up to the little shack to see if they had come. But there were no signs of any one having been there and the summer passed without bringing them--Rob inquired at the land office whether their filing had been withdrawn, but nothing of that kind had happened. "Too bad," said the clerk, "for somebody else'll sure file over them if they let the time go over. Good land's getting mighty scarce around here." "I shouldn't wonder but what we'd better file on additional homesteads," Rob said, as he was telling Harry what he had heard; "I could take that long strip to the west and you could file on that swale on top of the hills; you know that long meadow just back of those buttes? With a fence around that we shouldn't be bothered so much with cattle coming in to water here when it gets dry. As soon as I can get time I believe I'll go over that land and look for section-line corners." "Are we going to have money enough for all that," Harry asked: "take up more land before we've got this planted?" "I shouldn't plant all of this anyway; haven't water enough to irrigate it all. But I'll need more grazing some day for my stock. If nothing happens we'll have money enough from this next winter's work to fence it." Rob had made several hundred dollars by his winter's work at Stone Bridge and he had also gained valuable experience in handling and feeding cattle. Harry, too, had saved more than half her salary and was able to invest in a good cow, pony and saddle. It seemed to both of them that they could not do better than go back to Stone Bridge for the next two winters. They could do a lot of work on the place in the six months of the dry season and the money they made working out would help them to get ahead much faster than two or three extra months on the ranch. Stone Bridge had, of course, grown during the summer absences. It was good wheat land and settlers were flowing in. The school naturally grew as well, and the third winter there were thirty pupils instead of fifteen, and a second teacher.