Part 2 (2/2)

It all started in Laredo, Texas, just after Nan and her guests had been met by Adair MacKenzie, Alice, and that amazing young newspaper man, Walker Jamieson.

”Got everything?” Adair MacKenzie asked gruffly when the bevy of pretty young girls, all in their early teens, had stepped, one after the other, from the streamlined train that had brought them from St. Louis. They had met in that city, all except Rhoda whose home, as those who have read ”Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch” will remember, was in the South. She, therefore, had joined the party at beautiful San Antonio. From there on, the girls had all been together.

”I-I-I guess so,” Nan answered her eccentric old cousin slowly as she looked about first at her friends and then at the suitcases and bags that the porters were setting on the station platform beside them.

”Looks it.” Adair MacKenzie agreed laconically. ”Got almost as many bags as Alice here and I thought that she carried more junk than any other woman alive. So these are the girls. H-m-m.” He looked at the Lakeview Hall group in much the same manner that he had appraised Bess just three weeks before.

”Let's see,” he began, and Nan's eyes twinkled as she realized that he was not going to keep his conclusions to himself any more than he had before. ”You're Laura,” he said positively, picking the red-headed girl out of the crowd as though he had studied a photograph of her until he couldn't possibly mistake her features.

”And that red hair's going to get you in trouble sometime,” he continued his characterization. ”Got a temper now. I can see that. A ready tongue too, I'll wager. But you'll get by if you can go on laughing at yourself. You've got a sense of humor. Keep it.”

”Yes, sir,” Laura answered as meekly as she could. She had already been warned, on the train, by Bess as to what to expect, so this frank a.n.a.lysis of her character did not take her altogether by surprise.

”And you, Miss,” the old Scotsman went on around the circle of girls enjoying himself hugely as he characterized his young cousin's friends, ”you,” he was looking at Amelia as he spoke, ”are the one that has all of those clocks. You're too serious. You'll learn down here in this lazy country that time just doesn't matter. Ask anybody to do anything for you and he'll nod his head slowly and mutter, if he's got enough pep, 'Si, si, senor, manana!' He'll do anything in the world you want him to do, manana, and manana never comes.

”However, you and I will get along. I like you. You are punctual. It's a virtue. Never been late for anything in your life, have you?”

Amelia hardly knew what to answer, for Adair had made time seem both important and unimportant.

”Speak up,” the old man looked at her kindly now. ”Don't be modest like my young cousin here. Well, never mind,” he pa.s.sed Amelia by as he saw that he had embarra.s.sed her beyond her ability to speak. ”I'll take care of you later,” he ended before he turned to Rhoda.

”From the West, aren't you?” he questioned the proud brown-eyed young girl. ”Can tell in a minute. That carriage, the way you hold your head, your clear eyes. Even if I hadn't heard that Western accent, I would have known.” Adair MacKenzie was proud of his ability to read character, and as he went from one of the young la.s.sies to the other, he was pleased with himself and pleased with them, for their quiet acceptance of his outspokenness.

”A city girl. Just a little too shy.” Grace's turn came last, and she had been dreading it. ”You've got to learn to stick up for your own rights,” he had struck home here, he knew, and though he realized that Grace could take it with less equilibrium than any of the rest, he wasn't going to spare her.

”Say, 'boo,' to you,” he went on, ”And you'll run. Isn't it so?”

Grace said nothing, but nodded her head.

”Try saying 'boo!' back sometime,” he advised in a quieter tone than he had used to any of the other girls, ”and see what happens. If the person you say it to doesn't run, stand your ground and say it again, louder.

But be careful,” he patted Grace on the shoulder, ”and don't scare yourself with your own voice.”

At this everyone laughed, including Grace, and Alice MacKenzie took her father by the arm and started toward the station. ”If you don't look out, father,” she warned, ”I'll say 'boo!' to you and then you'll jump.”

”Oh, go along with you,” Adair MacKenzie pounded his cane on the wooden platform, and then shook it at his daughter, ”If you don't behave yourself, I'll give you one last spanking that will hold you until you are as old and gray as I am.”

For answer, Alice laughed provocatively up into his face.

”Now, come on, you girls,” Adair frowned as best he could under the circ.u.mstances, ”we've got to get along. And you too, you get a move on,”

he pointed his cane, with this, at a tall, lanky blond young man.

At this, Nan and Bess, Rhoda and Grace, Laura and Amelia with one accord turned their eyes on Walker Jamieson.

”It's real, girls.” Walker grinned down into their faces. ”It moves and speaks, eats and sleeps just like the rest of the world. It does everything but work.” So saying, he winked quite openly at Alice and lengthened his steps so that he walked beside her father.

”First truth I've ever heard you utter,” Adair MacKenzie tried to sound brusk, but didn't succeed very well. The truth was, of course, that he was intensely pleased with the prospect of spending his summer with this crowd of young people. And, though he would be the last person in the world to admit it, he was intensely flattered that this brilliant young newspaper man was in the party. ”Not that he came,” he thought to himself as he noted, with some satisfaction, the regard with which Walker seemed to hold Alice, ”to keep me company.” He sighed deeply as he finished the thought. Alice was his only child.

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