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“Oh, yes, papa—please let’s go and have a picnic. It’ll be so beautiful!” And Van Brunt said:

“Certainly, Pearsall. We’re in your hands now.”

The ranch boss got his passengers into the ambulance, Miss Van Brunt and her nephew with the baby on the back seat, Hilda perched beside him on the front. As he gathered up his lines he smiled down at the tousled dark hair from which she had promptly pulled the much-trimmed small hat.

“Now for our picnic, sister,” he said. “We’re a-goin’ to have a good long one. Sixty miles long. And camp overnight on the plain. I’ve got grub a-plenty, and everything fixed.”

Hilda just gave him a smile and a little bubbling, inarticulate sound of delight in answer to this. Presently, when they went over a bump in the trail, her short legs made it necessary that she grasp his arm to keep from being shot forward over the dashboard.

“Why, here, this won’t never do!” said the old man as he stopped the ponies, tied the lines to the brake-handle, and fished out from among the supplies a box which he wedged securely beneath her feet. When they started on once more, he said in a confidential tone: “Ye see, I put you up here, because Auntie ain’t used to rough traveling; and your father, he’s got little brother to look out for. You and me can stand the jouncing, can’t we?”