"I'll tell you, Genevieve, just where they found out," she cut in, utterly ignoring her own share of the "they." "Now, listen! How do you suppose they spent all the time you were in New Jersey? I'll tell you. They were digging up Texas every single minute; and they dug, and dug, and dug, until there wasn't a mean annual temperature, or a mean anything else that they didn't drag from its hiding-place and hold up triumphantly, and shout: 'Behold, this is Texas!'" "Girls--you didn't!" cried Genevieve, choking with laughter. "They did!" affirmed Tilly. "Yes, _we_ did--including Tilly," declared Cordelia, with unexpected spirit. Everybody laughed this time, but it was Alma, the peacemaker, who spoke next. "Oh, look--look at the sun!" she exclaimed. "Aren't those rose-pink clouds gorgeous?" "My, wouldn't they make a lovely dress?" sighed Elsie. "Yes, and see the golden pathway the sun has made, straight down to the prairie," cried Bertha Brown. "Oh, look, look, Mr. Hartley! Is that grass on fire?" gasped Cordelia. Mr. Hartley shook his head. "No--I hope not." "But you do have prairie fires?" "Sometimes; but not so often nowadays--though I've seen some bad ones, in my time." There was a long silence. All eyes were turned toward the west. Above, a riot of rose and gold and purple flamed across the sky. Below, more softly, the colors seemed almost repeated in the waving, shifting, changing expanse of fairylike loveliness that the prairie had become. "Oh, how beautiful it all is, and how I do love it," breathed Genevieve, after a time, as if to herself. Gradually the gorgeous rose and gold and purple changed, softened, and faded quite away. The slender crescent of the moon appeared, and one by one the stars showed in the darkening sky. "It's all so quiet, so wonderfully quiet," sighed Cordelia; then, abruptly, she cried: "Why, what's that?" There had sounded a far-away shout, then another, nearer. On the breeze was borne the muffled tread of hundreds of hoofs. A dog began to bark lustily. * * * * * Later, they swept into view--a troop of cowboys, and a thronging, jostling mass of cattle. "On the way to a round-up, probably," explained Mr. Hartley, as he rose to his feet and went to meet the foreman, who was coming toward the house. Still later, he explained more fully. "They've put them in our pens for the night. The boys have gone into camp a mile or so away." Genevieve shuddered. "I hate round-ups," she cried passionately. "What are round-ups?" asked Bertha Brown. "Where they brand the cattle," answered Genevieve, quickly, but in a low voice. Cordelia, who was near her, shuddered. She seemed now to see before her eyes that seething mass of heads and horns, sweeping on and on unceasingly.