“You said it,” Red agreed. “A little money comes in handy.” “A. B.” grew an angry red and made an impatient gesture. Then an evil smile came to his face. And at that moment he knew how he would get back at Bill Daniels. He would strike at him through his girl. A grand chance to get even, if Daniels wanted to be such a fool. Raquel, meanwhile, all unconscious of the forces that were preparing to fight her, was thinking back over her parting conversation with Jimmy. They had gone into the little school room together so that Jimmy could show her the school work laid out for Georgie that winter. Raquel was wearing a green jersey sports dress, a pretty thing, the most becoming she had--she had slipped into it at the last minute instead of pulling on her ranch clothes. How glad she was Anne had finally persuaded her to buy it! Jimmy pompously took his seat at the teacher’s desk, while Raquel squeezed into one of the mutilated old desks which Dad had brought out from town when Grant and Custer were little, so that his children would have all the advantages of real school atmosphere. “What’s it to be now, Raquel?” Jimmy had asked. “Oh, I know you’ve come back to handle a job that releases three able-bodied men to go to war”--an expression of momentary bitterness pulled at Jimmy’s mouth--“but how does it all seem, apart from the fact that there’s no life like the old ranch? I mean to say, what did you bring back with you from the East, from School, besides some mighty stunning clothes and three months’ good schooling? Got any new ideas?” Raquel looked puzzled. What did Jimmy mean? She was not particularly analytical; she took things as she found them. She was going to run the ranch and that was all there was to it. If she could just hang on till Dad’s return, that was all she asked. “Well, I couldn’t exactly get any new ideas about cattle ranching back East, could I? But I can think of one improvement. It seems to me I sort of hanker after a good shower bath and a couple of large porcelain tubs in place of that green tin tug boat we lug around to the warmest fire. Seems that if the Lazy L could afford a cattle dip and a couple of pianos it ought to be able to stand at least one genuine bath tub.” Jimmy roared his delight. “Well, I’ll tell you, Jimmy, it was really a wonderful experience, but somehow it seemed to me that the girls, none of them, had ever had a real responsibility outside of their monthly marks, and what they learned didn’t have much real meaning to them because of it. I mean--well, having lived out here you could just understand how the discoverers and pioneers felt when they found all the new countries of America. And that made me interested in history; the people seemed more real to me, and the growth of a country something about human beings, instead of just dry writing on a page.