IN THE CANYON
The next day was Saturday, and the morning dawned so hot and sultry that almost before the old kitchen clock struck five, the restless eaglets were stirring once more.
"Now's the time I wish we didn't live so far up the mountain," sighed Mercedes, mopping her perspiring face on her sleeve as she struggled to button the dress she had just donned.
"Yes, summer's an awful trial here in this house," agreed Susie, trying to decide whether to put on her shoes and stockings and suffer from the heat in that manner, or to go bare-footed and burn her tender soles on the hot sands.
"Le's do down to the river to-day," lisped Janie, lifting eager eyes to scan the dark face bending over, as Tabitha patiently brushed the tangled curls into smooth ringlets.
"Oh, let's!" seconded the twins.
"You know we had to stay at home yesterday when the rest of you went," wheedled Inez.
"And 'twould have been awful lonesome," began Irene, "if it hadn't been for that——"
"Ice-cream," hastily interposed Susie, giving the little blunderbus a warning glance. "Can't we go, Tabitha? It would be so much cooler there."
"I don't see how we can manage it," answered the flushed housekeeper, glancing longingly out of the window down the yellow ribbon of a road which wound its way in and out among the rocks and yuccas on its way to the muddy Colorado, seven miles away. "The assayer will be wanting his horses to-day and it's too far to walk."