“Let the dinosaur pay for it,” said Polly, hastily. “Of course I know she couldn’t go unless something did happen to open the way for her, but this will, won’t it? The Chief told her to-day she was to have a third of whatever he received, because she is the true discoverer.”
“But you and the other girls are the promoters.”
Polly flushed quickly.
“Oh, we don’t want anything. All we did was to encourage Peggie.”
“I think you were what you are so fond of, the gift-bringers of opportunity. It is very dear and thoughtful of you, anyway, and I will promise to talk it over with father and mother soon. That is what you want me to do, isn’t it?”
Polly reached up, and gave her a quick, forcible hug, and kissed her cheek, for answer. Jean watched her as she went down the creek path to join the other girls at the swimming pool. Someway the thought would not be banished, and she found herself considering it seriously. Peggie a Calvert girl? Peggie, her little, wild ranch girl, to turn into one of Miss Calvert’s pupils, at a “select academy for young ladies,” as the fall circulars always said. Jean caught herself laughing softly at the picture. Still, after all, she decided, it depended on Peggie.
Every day found the Chief and the Doctor over in the gulch, planning and exploring. The girls did not accompany them. They felt that their share in the labor was accomplished. It only remained to see results. So they spent the last of the week having a good time on the ranch, and riding around, bareheaded, merry, and just “full of fun,” as Mrs. Murray said, comfortably.
“Land o’ rest, let them enjoy themselves while they can,” she would say, standing at the low doorway, to watch them at play down in the lower field below the corral. Don and Peggie were giving an exhibition of trick-riding and Ted and Polly were trying to imitate them. “I wish sometimes that I could turn loose hosts of young ones like these out here in our beautiful land, and let them find the world as young as they are. Yes, I know what Doctor Smith said, that that lot of bones yonder had been there maybe ten million years. I don’t pretend to know those things. Maybe the world was made in six days, and maybe it was made in sixty million. The Lord knows, and that suffices. I never did hold with this promiscuous poking after what doesn’t concern us. First thing we know, an airship will bump an angel down, and then there’ll be more excitement. The world is young still, bless it, and it’s fresh and green and very beautiful, and I do love to see young things playing on it, whether it’s lambs, or children, or rabbits. They’re a wonderful lot alike.”
Jean listened, sitting on the lower step of the little porch, sewing on a new dress for Peggie, that she needed for camping. It was a strong, tan khaki, like the other girls wore, with a divided skirt, and middy blouse. Someway, as she heard what her mother said, it seemed like the propitious moment for Peggie, and she unfolded Polly’s plan.
Mrs. Murray listened in silence, her plain, motherly face a little bit sad, though the smile did not leave her lips. Jean waited a minute when she had finished, before she asked: