“We have quantities of material,” said Mrs. Kingdon. “I seem to have a mania for buying it, and there my interest in new garments ceases. Agatha is a fine seamstress, so we’ll have you outfitted in no time.”
“Wouldn’t you like to motor over the place, Miss Pen?” invited Kingdon as they rose from the table. Smiling understandingly at her look of alarm, he added: “I don’t mean in the car Kurt brought you up in yesterday.”
“Uncle Kurt made it all himself—out of parts he bought,” boasted Francis.
“Dear me!” said Pen ruefully. “I wish he hadn’t bought so many parts, or else left some of them out.”
“It’s a fine car!” declared Francis in tone of rebuke.
“I like it better than ours,” said Billy. “We helped make it.”
“I throw up my hands,” said Kingdon. “Only the loyalty of a child would have the courage to defend such a car.”
In a long, luxurious limousine the entire family made the rounds of the ranch to show Pen the squadrons of cattle browsing by the creek, thoroughbred horses inclosed in a pasture of many miles, the smaller-spaced farmyard, the buildings, bunk-houses and “Kurt’s Kabin,” as a facetious cowboy had labeled the office where the foreman made out the pay rolls and transacted the business affairs of the ranch.
“I think you have seen it all, now,” said Kingdon, as he turned the car into the driveway that led homeward.
“Oh, no!” cried Billy. “She hasn’t seen Jo yet. There he is at the mess house.”