The memories of the little girl in the pink apron, together with the pleas of Mr. Benjamin Jarvis on behalf of Allan, and the assurance of Mr. Samuel Wilson that his children had cried "five nights runnin'" was almost too much for Mary. In one mad wave of sympathy she determined to give up college and to wire her mother that the Path of Duty for her led unmistakably to the Bear Canyon school. But the more mature judgment of Mr. Hunter and Aunt Nan prevailed, and an hour later three very reluctant trustees rode away, leaving behind them a sad, but much relieved, school-teacher, who lay long awake that night and pondered over the desperate state of affairs in Bear Canyon. But her worry, like most that encumbers the world, was needless, for the County Superintendent over at Elk Creek lent a helping hand, and sent Miss Martha Bumps to Bear Canyon. Now Miss Bumps was not Mary, but she was assuredly Miss Martha Bumps, and the three trustees, disappointed as they were not to have Mary, held their heads a trifle higher as they drove to town. For the aforesaid Miss Bumps was a character of renown throughout the county, and it was only because of the whooping-cough in the consolidated rural schools of Willow Creek that she was prompted to forsake her larger field and hurry to the aid of Bear Canyon. For twenty-five years Miss Martha Bumps had dedicated her energies to the teaching of Wyoming country schools. Some who knew her well affirmed that she had made money thereby; and this statement will doubtless be given credence by all who are not themselves school-teachers. After relinquishing the dreams in which most women of thirty indulge, and deciding once and for all that she would give the best of her life to teaching, she had spent much thought and ingenuity in scheming how such a vocation could be a distinctly pleasurable one. Ten years of boarding in homesteaders' cabins, of sleeping with the youngest child, and eating salt pork three times a day, of drinking condensed milk on ranches devoted solely to cattle, and of riding miles to her place of business in all kinds of weather--these experiences had been fruitful in the extreme. Now she boarded nowhere. Instead, she lived in her own two-room house, which, clapboarded, shingled, windowed and doored after the manner of all houses, was mounted upon four stout cart-wheels, and driven by an obliging trustee of one district to the next chosen field whenever Miss Bumps decided that the time had come to make a change. Arriving at her destination, the house was drawn to the best site near the school, the horses were unhitched, and the trustee, riding and leading, started homeward, leaving Miss Bumps to begin her double labors in her new situation.