“Well, there’s home, Rakie.” Old Man Daniels leaned forward from the back seat, where he sat with Georgie, whose round face belied the man’s estate claimed by a pistol holster on the hip. “That’s your’n from now on for a spell, by right of eminent domain.” As the scent of the mesa blew fresh in her face, and the familiar sight of the ranch house and its outlying buildings, their cream-plastered walls vivid in the late afternoon sun, came nearer and nearer, Raquel drew a sigh of content. Her eyes sparkled as she called over her shoulder, “I pretty nearly forgot what the sun looked like back there.” “What!” Jimmy Hovey, back on a three days’ leave, beamed from the driver’s seat beside her. “What, didn’t the sun go with you then? Why, it’s been much darker since you went away. This is a special illumination in your honor.” “Aw, cut it out, Jimmy,” growled Georgie. “Rakie’s gonta have an awful swelled head anyways. Say, Sis, thought you were goin’ to be wearin’ some real purty clothes, velvet or silk or somep’n.” He looked with disdain at her homespun. “That coat looks just like Jimmy’s.” They were nearing the upper pasture, where the radiant Jami waited, swinging wide the gate to let the Pathfinder through. Had it not been for a deep arroyo between the upper and the lower pastures, the car could have coasted straight to the ranch house door, but Jimmy deftly threw in his clutch and started the engine just as they struck heavy sand. Roaring boastfully of its eighty horsepower, the car slid through the outer gate and rolled quietly to a stop before the patio door. “Howdy, howdy, Raquel.” There was the canny Russell, redder than ever, who had ridden back through a short cut so that he might be the first to shake Raquel’s hand, which he was now awkwardly pumping up and down. And Ole Hossfoot. And if there wasn’t Angel, and Pancho Esquibal, extending the most ceremonious and courtly greeting of them all to his “_muy querida padroncita_.” “Where’s Mom?” Raquel’s eyes looked eagerly ahead through the open patio door, across the courtyard and into the house. “Oh, that poor old mother-woman,” Mr. Daniels answered, “most likely she’s a-hidin’ out like she always does when any one comes home. ’Fraid she’ll cry. Guess I’ll have to go and drag her out of the ice house.” And in fact they did. Even when Dad and Raquel appeared in the ice house door, their eyes searching the dark recesses, Mom was so busy with imaginary duties that she could not hear them. “Mother, you in there?” they called. “Yes’m,” she answered desperately. “You back, Raquel?--Did you have a good time? Sure has been a dry winter here.” Raquel threw her arms around her mother’s neck and kissed her cheeks and Mrs. Daniels pulled her apron over her head and wept.