"No; that isn't one of the difficulties we have to deal with," smiled Mr. Hartley; but Bertha bridled visibly.
"Well, really, Tilly Mack," she exclaimed in pretended anger, "I should like to know if you mean anything special! You see," she added laughingly to Mr. Hartley, "I happen to live next to Tilly, myself!"
From both carriage and wagon, now, came a babel of eager chatter. There was so much to be seen on the one hand, so much to be explained on the other. The buildings and corrals were plainly visible by this time, and each minute they became more clearly defined.
"Do you mean that all that belongs to just one ranch?" demanded Tilly.
"Sure!" twinkled Mr. Hartley. "You see, if folks can't borrow of us, we can't borrow of them, either; so it's rather necessary that we have all the comforts of home ourselves."
"Well, I guess you've got them," laughed Tilly, looking wonderingly about her.
"I reckon we have," nodded Mr. Hartley, as he began to point out one and another of the buildings.
There was the long, low ranch house facing the wide reach of the prairie. Behind it, and connected with it by a covered way, were the dining room and the cook room. Beyond that was the long bunk house where the men slept, flanked by another building for the Mexican servants. There were stables, sheds, a storehouse and saddle-room, and a blacksmith's shop. Below the house an oblong bit of fenced ground showed a riot of color—Genevieve's flower garden. Below that was a vegetable garden. There was a large corral for the cattle, and a smaller one, high and circular, for the horses. There were three or four green trees near the house—tall, thin cottonwoods that had grown up along the slender streams of waste water from the windmill.