"Jim, what's up? You are a swell to-night," Jean teased. "Did you think we were giving a party?"
Jim did look different. He wore a stiff white shirt instead of a soft flannel one and could hardly turn his head in his starched linen collar.
Frieda flew to him with a little cry of welcome.
"What's the matter, baby?" Jim demanded, noticing Frieda's flushed cheeks. As he gazed slowly around the family group, he noticed Miss Jacqueline Ralston's haughty expression and Miss Ruth Drew's severe one; saw Olive's troubled face and Jean's mischievous one. "I guess I had better be going," Jim suggested, backing toward the door.
"Oh, no, Jim," Jack insisted carelessly. "There is nothing the matter, only Cousin Ruth does not wish me to go to the round-up with you in the morning. Will you please tell her that cowboys aren't all villains!"
Jim frowned. "If your Cousin don't want you to go, Jack, seems like you had better stay at home," he declared quietly.
A little flush of triumph spread over Ruth's face. This was her first trouble with any one of the ranch girls and their friend had sided with her. She gave him a grateful glance, then closed her lips more firmly than ever. With any one of the four girls save Jack, she would have tried persuasion instead of command. But it seemed to her perfectly useless to attempt to influence Jack.
Jack shrugged her shoulders. "I don't agree with you, Jim," she declared obstinately.
Jim brought his lips together with a snap and stared straight at the elder Miss Ralston. "Look here, Jack," he said, "wasn't it you who asked your cousin to come out here to live with you, so as to have some one to tell you what was right? Now it seems to me that you only want her to tell you what you happen to want to do. I wasn't at all certain that you ought to ride over to the round-up with me, but I've been treating you like a boy so long, I can't somehow remember you're a girl. Stay at home and keep out of mischief." Jim laughed.
Ruth smiled, thinking the battle was won, but Jack got up calmly and marched out of the room and they heard her bedroom door close.