central figure of any group or the bright particular star of any
occasion.

'Be home before dark,' said Dr. Winship. 'Pancho, keep a look-out
for the pack-mule. Truth, one of the pack-mules has disappeared.'

'So? Dumpling or Ditto?'

'Ditto, curiously enough. His name should have led him not to set an
example, but to follow one.'


Elsie came.

Perhaps you thought that this was going to be an exciting story, and
that something would happen to keep her at the Tacitas ranch; but
nothing did. Everything came to pass exactly as it was arranged, and
Jack met his mother and sister at twelve o'clock some four miles from
the camp, and escorted them to the gates.

'Welcome' had been painted on twenty different boards or bits of
white cloth and paper, and nailed here and there on the trees that
lined the rough wood-road; the strains of an orchestra, formed of a
guitar, banjo, castanets, Chinese fiddle, and tin cans, greeted them
from a distance, but were properly allowed to die away in silence
when the guest neared the tents. Everything wore a new and smiling
face, and Elsie never came more dangerously near being squeezed to
death.

Elsie, in the prettiest of gingham dresses, and her cloud of golden