"Olive, don't fall in the creek," Jean called out gaily. "Come and be introduced to Cousin Ruth; she would rather see you than have fish for her luncheon."
Olive gave a startled cry and Jean made a dive for her. But Olive did not tumble into the water. She gave a quick jerk to her fishing line, hooked and drew in a good-sized trout. Then Olive slipped up the bank to the others. Ruth looked curiously at the dark, rich coloring of her face; she did not seem like an Indian, and yet she certainly bore no resemblance to an American girl. Cousin Ruth felt that she would be an interesting study, although Olive was too shy to say more than a dozen words of greeting.
"Come on, let's walk a little farther along the creek, Jack won't be home for a while yet," Jean declared. "Jack thinks the ranch would go to rack and ruin unless she were around to boss things."
"Don't you think maybe it would?" Olive questioned gently.
Jean laughed. "Oh, I expect so, Olive; but how you do take up for Jack! Cousin Ruth, you will have to protect Frieda and me. Olive thinks Jack is perfection and agrees to anything she says."
"Look, look! Oh, please don't talk," Frieda cried in excitement, pointing up in the sky above the bed of the creek.
A weird troop of birds was flying toward them, uttering a queer, guttural noise. They were some distance off, but their short wings seemed to clack like Spanish castanets and their long legs looked like dangling bits of string.
"What on earth are those creatures?" Ruth asked helplessly. She was surely seeing interesting sights in what she had thought a barren and desert land.
"They are sand cranes," Olive whispered softly. "Let's be quite still. They are flying so low, I think they mean to alight. They must have mistaken the creek for a river."
Frieda snickered and put her hand to her mouth.