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The day was clouded by the murk of Fayte’s sneers. He condescended to rope the girls as they ran screaming; but being rated as dumb driven cattle, even by so mighty a person, wasn’t much of a consolation. Finally he scalped his sister’s dolls by the simple process of pulling their wigs off. Maybelle went whimpering to Mrs. Capadine, who indignantly told the boy that he would not be allowed to go on the return visit to the Three Sorrows which Miss Valeria was already proposing. Fayte said sullenly that he didn’t want to. He said that the Three Sorrows was his ranch, anyhow—by rights—and far’s he was concerned he didn’t care to go and see other people living on it.

His ranch! What could Fayte Marchbanks mean by that? The next day Hilda took the question to her father, but he only laughed. It was Uncle Hank—Uncle Hank, who always talked to one the same as to grown-ups—who finally explained the matter to her, allowing tolerantly, “Oh, just a kid’s bragging. Fayte Marchbanks says things like that, I expect, because his Spanish grandpa, old man Romero, was the first owner of this ranch, and did give the place its name—the Rancho of the Three Sorrows.”