"Dear Susy and Ruth: There's only room for me to say hello, and how are you? I wish I were a grand descriptive genius like Robert Louis Stevenson so that I could describe this wonderful Texas. But description isn't my strong point—you know how I just scraped through Eng. Comp. so I'll not try any flights.
"It isn't half as wild as we used to imagine it. The cowboys don't go shooting up towns and hanging horse-thieves to all the trees the way they do in most of the Western stories. Even the cattle are tame, but Blue Bonnet says that is because they are fenced nowadays, and most of them de-horned. All the cowboys except two are Mexicans, and they are so picturesque and—different. Mr. Ashe says Texas is filling up with negroes but he won't have any on the ranch,—he sticks to the Mexicans, and I'm mighty glad, for they seem just to suit the atmosphere. Juanita, who waits on the table, is a beauty, with the most coquettish airs. Miguel is in love with her, and we all hope she won't keep him waiting too long, for if they are really going to be married, we want a grand wedding while we are here. Wouldn't that be thrilling?
"I've just room to sign my name,
"Yours, with love,
"Debby."
"To the absent two-sevenths of the 'We-are-Its'—Greeting! Please don't imagine that I forced my way into this Round Robin affair. My masculine chirography probably looks out of place in this epistolary triumph—ahem!—but you can thank Kitty Clark for it. I don't know whether or not this is intended as a letter of condolence, but it surely ought to be,—anybody who has to miss this summer-session on the Blue Bonnet ranch deserves flowers and slow music.
"This letter will be postmarked 'Jonah'—but don't be alarmed; they say it's a harmless one. I'm going to ride over with the mail. Just a little matter of twenty miles, a trifle out here! Kitty says she doesn't see how we can expect any letters to reach a place with such a name, but I've faith in the collection of relatives left behind in Woodford.
"Now I advise you both, the next time you go into the vicinity of anything catching, cross your fingers and say 'King's Ex.' for you're missing the time of your young lives. As a place of residence, Texas certainly has my vote. A fellow can breathe his lungs full here without robbing the next fellow of oxygen.
"With unbounded sympathy,
"Yours,
"Alec Trent."
Blue Bonnet collected the literary installments from each of the different authors and put them in a big envelope.
"This 'round-robin' is as plump as a partridge," she remarked. "I hope Susy and Ruth won't strain their eyes devouring it."