"Yes, just a common everyday wood-rat, for obvious reasons sometimes called a pack-rat. But how did you happen to come up here, Clarice?"
"If I had known how far it was, and what a dreadful place I should find, I am afraid my great desire to see you couldn't have induced me to attempt it. How can you stay here? I wish you'd go home, Hope!"
"Is that what you came to tell me?" asked the girl quietly. "If so, you might just as well get on your horse and go back. I wrote you not to come. You might have taken my advice—it would have been a heap better. You're not cut out for this sort of place. I don't know what in the world I'm going to do with you to-night! I'll send you back to-morrow, that's one thing sure. One of us will have to sleep on the floor, or else we'll be obliged to sleep three in a bed."
"Oh, I'll make me a bed on the floor," offered Louisa quickly.
"You won't do anything of the kind—the idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Rensselaer, aghast. "Supposing that thing—that rat should come!"
"We'll put the soap back in the hole again," replied Hope. "And King Solomon will have to keep out. Before Louisa came I used to let him come in just for company's sake, but the poor fellow is a hopeless case. Clarice, I wish you hadn't come!"
"I wish so, too, if that will help you any," replied Mrs. Van Rensselaer, lifting her pretty face dejectedly from her hands and looking about the room in a woe-begone manner. "I'm awfully tired, Hope, and hungry, but I couldn't eat here if I starved to death! Is that room in there always so grimy and dirty? and what makes that terrible odor about the place?"
"I think you'd better go back to the ranch to-night," suggested Hope.
Clarice moaned in deep discouragement: "Oh, if you knew how tired I am! But I can't stand it here—I can't do it! Let me get out in the fresh air, away from the odor of those pigs and chickens and rats, and sit down on the side of a mountain—anywhere, so that I can breathe again!" After a moment's pause she suddenly exclaimed: "Hope, there's something biting me! What in the world is it? I tell you there's an insect on me!"
"Fleas," said Hope briefly. "The place is full of them. They don't bite me, and they don't bother Louisa much either. Poor Clarice, what trouble you have got yourself into! I can't send you back to-night, that's one sure thing, you're too tired." She pondered a moment, deeply perplexed, then all at once a solution came to her. Her eyes brightened and she laughed.