Jim watched Dan sneak across the divide and he and Jack waited until the four men started on foot across the plain. Then Jim smiled a slow smile which meant many things. "Don't you worry quite so much about our losing our ranch, Jacqueline Ralston," Jim announced. "If old Daniel Norton had felt so sure he was going to succeed in getting our place away from us, he would never have tried to steal our water at this stage of the game." The two horses were grazing near by and Jim lifted Jack into her saddle. They turned their faces toward Rainbow Lodge. Once or twice, Jim rubbed his chin. "Pretty good day's work for us, boss?" he asked finally. Jack's eyes danced and a deep rose color glowed in her cheeks. She did not look in the least like the girl who had received in tears the news of the possible loss of her home. Jack laughed softly, under her breath. "It sure was a good day's work, overseer, and we'll fight till the hat drops," she answered, in the tone of another cowboy. Then Jack flicked her pony with her whip. "Do let's hurry, Jim," she called gaily. "I never saw anything in my life so delicious as the picture you made lassoing Dan. I am just dying to get home to tell the other girls." CHAPTER XIII. THE WET BLANKET. "JACK, how are we ever going to quit using slang?" Jean groaned. "Oh, we do worse things, Jean Bruce," Jack answered unfeelingly. "Little we know how many crimes we do commit! Just wait until a straight-laced old maid gets hold of us! And what will Cousin Ruth say about Jim's grammar? You know she is a B.A. from some woman's college. Do you know Jean, I often wonder if Jim talks in the careless way he does simply because he has lived so long out here with the cowboys. He must have had some education when he was young, he seems to have read a great many books." "Jim Colter is a clam," Jean remarked impatiently, forgetting her resolution to speak only "English, pure and undefiled." "He would rather die than to let us learn anything of his past. I do declare, Jack, that if he were anybody in the world except Jim, I should think he had something in his life he wished to conceal. I wonder if he ever had a tragic love affair?" "Oh, Jean, you are a romantic goose," Jack exclaimed. "What was it you had to show me?" Jean and Jack were giving a thorough cleaning to the living-room; Aunt Ellen had shaken the rugs and polished the pine floor, but the two girls were dusting vigorously in every crack and corner and rubbing the brass candlesticks with an unaccustomed ardor. Through the entire Lodge there rioted a sense of preparation, as before the approach of some great event. Jean flung down her dust cloth, seized Jack by the hand and marched her over to the corner lined with their book shelves. Jack discovered an entirely unknown row of books. "Why, Jean Bruce!" Jack exclaimed in amazement. "Where did you ever find these old things and what do we want with them anyhow?"