In the week that followed the partners of the Three Star managed to find many hours for holiday-making. The ranch ran well on its own routine, and Molly was a princess to be entertained. Kate Nicholson emerged from her chrysalis and became almost a butterfly rather than the pale gray moth they had fancied her. Even Miranda revised her opinion. The Nicholsons, it came out, had been a family of some consequence and a fair degree of riches in South Carolina before an unfortunate speculation had taken everything. Kate Nicholson, left alone soon afterward, had assumed the role of governess or companion with more or less success and drifted on, submerged in the families who had used her services until Keith had secured her for the post with Molly when things had seemed particularly black. Now, riding with Molly, with Sam and Sandy for escorts, over the open range or up into the cañons, on picnics, the years slid off from her. She acquired color with the capacity for enjoyment, she developed a quaint gift of jest and she proved a natural horsewoman. Molly coaxed her into different modes of hair dressing and little touches of color. She laughed understandingly and talked spontaneously. Evenings, when they would return to the disconsolate Mormon, who bewailed openly his lack of saddle ease, they found, two nights out of three, Miranda Bailey, self-charioted in her flivver with offerings of cake and doughnuts to supplement Pedro's still uncertain efforts.
Molly chuckled once to Sandy.
"Miranda's a dear," she said. "I wish she'd marry Mormon. But Kate Nicholson is a far better cook than she is. Only she won't do anything for fear of hurting Miranda's feelings."
Yet the governess did cook on occasion, trout that they caught in the mountain streams, and camp biscuits and fragrant coffee when they made excursion, so deft a presiding genius of the camp-fire that Sam declared she belonged to Sageland.
"I love it," she answered, sleeves tucked to the elbow, stooping over the fire, her face full of color, tucking a vagrant wisp of hair into place.
"Not much like the East, is it, Molly?" Sandy would ask.
"Not a bit. Lots better."
"You must miss a lot."
"What, for instance, Sandy?"
"Real music, for one thing. Concerts, theaters. Your sports. Tennis and golf. The people you met at the Keiths'. Clothes, pritty dresses, dancin'."