THE CHANT OF THE NEW MOON
That first day at the ranch seemed the longest of the stay, when the girls looked back to it afterwards. There were so many things to see and talk about, so much ground to cover.
“It is sure to be like this for the first few days,” Mrs. Murray told them, smilingly. “It is the same with my own bairns when they come home for the summer vacation. They are like a lot of sheep for a while, following me around, and dodging at their father’s heels the same way. You must not try to do too much at first, or you’ll do nothing at all.”
“If I learn how to saddle a pony to-day, I’ll feel I’ve done well,” sighed Sue. “I’ve tried to do it four times so far, and Don laughs at me. When I tried to put the halter around his neck, I got hold of the wrong end of the rope, and it was upside down. But I’m going right back, and try it over.”
The girls laughed as she sped back to the corral. They were sitting out of doors after supper, some on the broad low stoop, some in the hammock. Mr. Murray had arrived from Deercroft about sunset with his two big boys, as he called them. Two stalwart Westerners they were, with their mother’s steady gray eyes, and the close-lipped smile of their father.
“I thought they were just boys from the way Miss Jean talked of them,” protested Polly, as she looked after the two striding away to the house with their suit-cases. “They’re grown up.”
“Archie is twenty-three, and Neil a year older,” explained Jean. “But still they seem like boys, don’t they, mother dear?”
“They’re growing fast, Jeanie,” was all Mrs. Murray would say.
“We won’t see them much after to-morrow,” went on Jean. “Help is scarce out here, and they have to help father with his haying. Ours is not a big ranch, you know, girls. We’re only a home ranch, so we hardly depend on the range at all for feed. It used to be a case of everybody turn out the cattle to graze, and then have the two big round-ups, spring and fall, but now everything has gone into sheep, as the cow-men say. Father sold off his stock about seven years ago, and went in for sheep, as soon as the trouble had quieted down.”
“What trouble?” asked Polly. “I didn’t know there was any trouble out West here excepting from Indians long ago.”