"You'll get home all right," Mr. Phillips assured her, easily. "I'll have Tom put your horses in at once and here's the money for your load." He counted out a fascinating little roll of bills, adding, as he tendered the amount to Jessie, who promptly pocketed it, "I hope you'll excuse my saying that you appear to be a plucky pair of girls. If you've anything more to market--" Jessie shook her head: "There was a reason; we were obliged to sell the melons," she ended, lamely. The horses, fed, watered, and evidently greatly refreshed, were, by this time, on the wagon. Mr. Phillips helped us in, and, while doing so, his glance fell on the rifle lying under the seat. He took up the gun and ran his eye over it approvingly. "Either of you shoot?" he inquired. "My sister shoots pretty well," Jessie told him, adding: "We really must be starting, and we are a thousand times obliged to you for your kindness." "And particularly for buying the melons," I could not forbear saying. Mr. Phillips laughed: "The boys will say that it was you who conferred the obligation, when it comes to sampling those melons," he said. I had gathered up the lines when he added, suddenly: "Wait!" I waited, while he stepped back into the tent. He re-appeared directly, carrying a half dozen big mallards and a couple of jack-rabbits: "You'll let me make you a present of these, won't you?" he asked, smiling, persuasively, as he tossed them into the wagon-box. "I was out hunting this morning, and I had good luck, as I always do." We thanked him heartily for his gift and drove off feeling not only a good deal richer, but much happier than when we had started out. CHAPTER XV CHASED BY WOLVES The horses trotted along briskly for a few miles, but they were tired from two days of hard work, and, in spite of their eagerness to reach home, their pace slackened. I did not urge them. It would be, as Mr. Phillips had said, a moonlight night; the rays of the rising moon were already silvering the deepening dusk. Ralph was again asleep in his snug harbor, with Guard lying quietly beside him. "The cows will be waiting at the corral bars when we get home," Jessie remarked once, "but it is going to be so light that we can do the chores nearly as well at midnight as we could at mid-day, so there is really no need of hurrying. We've had good luck to-day, haven't we, Leslie?" "Yes," I answered, "we have," but I spoke absently. I was listening to again catch a sound that had just reached my ears; faint, far off, but welcome; it was one that we seldom heard in that mountain-guarded valley where our days were passed. "Did you hear that, Jessie?" "What?" "The whistle of a locomotive engine; there it is again! How far off it seems!" "Sound travels a long way over these plains; there's nothing to intercept it--but I didn't hear it." "Listen. It will sound again, perhaps, when the train reaches another crossing. It must be way down on the Huerfano. There, didn't you hear that?"