She put her cheek against the little dirty one. The child felt tears. As he patted her cheek with his dirty hand, he repeated anxiously: "Me teacher be Wathemah mother?" "Yes," she answered, as though making a sacred covenant, "I, Wathemah's teacher, promise to be Wathemah's mother, so help me God." The child was coming into his birthright, the birthright of every child born into the world,--a mother's love. Who shall measure its power in the development of a child's life? They had reached the Clayton home. Wathemah turned reluctantly, lingering and drawing figures in the road with his bare feet, a picture one would long remember. He was a slender child, full of sinuous grace. His large, lustrous dark eyes, as well as his features, showed a strain of Spanish blood. He was dressed in cowboy fashion, but with more color than one sees in the cowboy costume. His trousers were of brown corduroy, slightly ragged. He wore a blue and white striped blouse, almost new. Around his neck, tied jauntily in front, was a red silk handkerchief, a gift from a cowboy. He smoothed it caressingly, as though he delighted in it. His straight, glossy black hair, except where cut short over the forehead, fell to his shoulders. Large loop-like ear-rings dangled from his ears; but the crowning feature of his costume, and his especial pride, was a new sombrero hat, trimmed with a scarlet ribbon and a white quill. He suddenly looked at his teacher, his face lighting with a radiant smile, and said: "Mother, _me_ mother." "Tell me, Wathemah," she said, "what you learned to-day in the Bible school." He turned and said softly: "Jesus love." Then the little child of the Open walked back to the camp, repeating softly to himself: "Jesus love! Mother love!" CHAPTER III CLAYTON RANCH Early traders knew Clayton Ranch well, for it was on the old stage route from Santa Fe to the Pacific coast. The house faced south, overlooking Gila River, and commanded a magnificent view of mountains and foothills and valleys. To the northeast, rose a distant mountain peak always streaked with snow.