Lanky was very glum as he stood around. Frank could easily guess the cause for this. Dora had stayed down in Columbia over the holiday, instead of going back to the farm; and she was to be seen in the society of the good-looking Walter Ackerman ’most all the morning. Indeed, Frank, seeing her glance quickly toward his chum a number of times, could understand that she was carrying on in this way simply to annoy Lanky. And as he declined to notice her even a little bit, it began to look as though the breach had grown too great to be easily bridged. “H’m!” said Frank to himself, “it doesn’t look as though Minnie had been very successful in making Dora see how silly she was in quarreling with poor Lanky, after he’s been taking her around everywhere since he met her up on the farm, at the time we saved the house from burning down. I must get her to try again, though. But in cases like this it isn’t much use. Dora is set on snubbing him; and Lanky wouldn’t shake hands with her, when she started to make up.” Frank and Lanky managed to get together on the trip home, though a bevy of girls walked close by; and Minnie doubtless wondered what important business took Frank from her side even for five minutes. “If you get a wire, call me up, Lanky, sure,” Frank was saying. “Will I? Well, you can wager I will, right speedy now,” came the answer. “I need your advice all the time, so’s to keep from makin’ a botched job of this thing. I hope it comes by to-morrow, though, or Saturday.” “Well, if it don’t, I’ll be disappointed myself,” remarked Frank. “For one thing,” the other went on, “those gyps aren’t a-goin’ to hang around these diggings forever, you know.” “Of course not,” agreed Frank. “They’ll be foldin’ up their tents and silently stealin’ away, as the poem has it,” Lanky continued; “and then where’d I be if I got word, when it was too late, that the lost child did wear that same kind of a little bonnet, with the blue ribbon on it?” “Perhaps there might be some way to coax them to stay a while longer,” suggested Frank, thoughtfully. “How, for instance?” questioned Lanky, eagerly. “Well, they’re sharp enough to know that with a big event coming off, like our athletic meet, a crowd of people will be coming to Columbia; and such a time is always good for horse trading, and such things. I’m going to set the wheels going, so as to make them see this. One camp is just as good as another to them, I guess, and so they’ll be glad to stay over.” “Well, if you ain’t the greatest hand at gettin’ up schemes I ever knew!” declared Lanky, warmly, as he gripped his chum’s hand and shook it. “Now, why didn’t I think of that plan? A gay old head I’ve got; ain’t worth shucks sometimes. Reckon some people are just about right in shaking such a fellow!” he added, gloomily.