with prayer and a hymn. After that the parents will please retire."

That evening Alethea-Belle went early to bed with a raging headache.
Next morning she appeared whiter than ever, but her eyelids were red.
However, she seemed self-possessed and even cheerful. Riding together
across the range, Ajax said to me: "Alethea-Belle is scared out of her
life."

"You mean Belle. Alethea is as brave as her father was before her."

"You're right. Poor little Belle! Perhaps we'd better find some job or
other round the _adobe_ this afternoon. There'll be ructions."

But the ructions did not take place that day. It seems that Alethea-
Belle told her scholars she was suffering severely from headache. She
begged them politely to be as quiet as possible. Perhaps amazement
constrained obedience.

"These foothill imps will kill her," said Ajax.

Within a week we knew that the big boys were becoming unmanageable,
but no such information leaked from Alethea-Belle's lips. Each evening
at supper we asked how she had fared during the day. Always she
replied primly: "I thank you; I'm getting along nicely, better than I
expected."

Mrs. Spafford, a peeper through doors and keyholes, explained the
schoolmarm's methods.

"I jest happened to be passin' by," she told me, "and I peeked in