"Well, all right, Puss; but don't think about it so much that you will call me that when Dad is around. He won't like it. I think I will keep this Bible, though. Don't tell. I can put it in the bottom of the old trunk where I keep my things and no one will ever know but you." So he marched away with the precious volume under his arm, and Tabitha crawled happily into bed to dream of grand names and a happy future in the unknown home where they were going. CHAPTER III TABITHA ADOPTS HER NEW NAME "What's your name?" Tabitha wheeled with a start, lost her balance, and toppled off the great rock to the hard ground, where she lay staring up at the fair-haired stranger bending over her with anxiety and alarm filling the pretty blue eyes. "Are you hurt?" inquired the soft voice. "I didn't mean to make you jump. I'm lonesome and when you moved in the nearest house to ours I was glad to think there was another girl about my size, for maybe you will play with me. Will you?" Still Tabitha made no reply, but lay as she had fallen, not daring to trust her ears or believe her eyes--it was not unusual for anyone to make friendly advances toward her, though she had longed all her lonely little life for a playmate. Why, it couldn't be possible! They were on the desert now in a forlorn little mining town located in a hollow between two mountain ranges and straggling over a vast area of barren, rocky hills, with not a tree in sight anywhere, except the ugly, uncompromising yuccas, and they could scarcely be dignified by the name of trees. Nothing but sagebrush, greasewood, mesquite and cactus; not even a sprill of grass! To poor homesick Tabitha it seemed as if they had dropped off the earth into nowhere. She had never seen such a place in all her life, nor even dreamed that towns like that existed. Wherever they had gone heretofore, there had always been trees and flowers, which in a measure took the place of the friends she had never known but always missed. Now there was not even to be this solace; how could there be any friends? So she remained silent and the little blue-eyed girl was puzzled, almost frightened. Then a bright idea came to her. "Are you an Indian?" she asked timidly, wondering if she had better run, supposing the black-eyed child should prove to be the daughter of a redman. "No, I ain't an Indian!" Tabitha bounced on the ground with a startling suddenness that froze the other child in her tracks.