CHAPTER I

RAQUEL GOES TO SCHOOL

Sunset brought Raquel to The Towers, that fashionable school for girls whose turrets overlooked the Hudson. The glow behind her seemed to have lingered to introduce this child of the land of sunshine. It seemed to burnish the dowdy little figure sitting so stiffly in the sedan. Yet she resolutely kept her back to the West, for to see it made her homesick. This was all so different. No wonder a calf bawled for its mother when they took it away!

Three days’ travel from Texas had put a whole world between Raquel and Los Ranchos, the Sunset Limited speeding her back over plains that the covered wagon of her grandparents had not crossed in three months’ journeying. And here she was rolling up a drive toward high iron gates. She leaned forward to peer through. It was even more imposing than she had imagined, this feudal castle in its beautiful grounds, all splashed with the reds and golds of autumn.

Lights were already glowing within the school. The pupils of The Towers always dressed for dinner, and Raquel could see girlish figures passing and repassing before the windows in their soft-colored frocks.

She had never been so afraid of anything in her life as of the prospect of this new world. She was trembling with nervousness. Two girls stood for a moment in one of the windows, each with an arm around the other’s waist. How happy they seemed! Oh, of course she would love school! Homesickness fell away. Raquel leaned forward, sat on the edge of the seat in her eagerness to be inside among those cheerful groups.

The girls of the Misses Carter’s school, watching from the windows as the sedan came to a stop at the entrance, saw a slight figure in a badly fitting suit swing out of the car the moment Jeems opened the door. Before he could stoop for her old calfskin bags the new girl had seized them herself and with a bulging piece of luggage in each hand leaped up the steps ahead of him.

There was a rush from the drawing-room windows. The next moment she was standing in the hall, eager eyes on the faces filling the doorway. They looked mighty pretty. Then the bags dropped to the floor with a thump. A lean hand was thrust out to enclose the plump white one of the younger Miss Carter, and a soft Texan voice was drawling, “Howdy, Ma’am, I sure am glad to be here.”

Then, striding after the floating form of the younger Miss Carter, the new girl was gone up the wide staircase.

“The cowgirl from Texas, or the Girl of the Golden West,” laughed a mischievous voice. “That your new roommate, Lois?”

Lois Wainwright shook a blonde head; her pretty face hardened. “Not if I can help it. I can get along without her in my young life. As a matter of fact I didn’t come here to be forced into any such association.”

“Oh, come, Loie, don’t be a snob!” A long-legged, handsome girl spoke from the depths of an easy chair where she sprawled with a book. “Besides, what do you know about that girl? She’s probably a peach. And she may be the very person that you may need most in your young life, old kiddo.”

* * * * *

Upstairs, Raquel Daniels followed Miss Isaphine Carter down carpeted halls strangely soft to unaccustomed feet. Her nostrils widened like a colt’s at the unfamiliar odor of this new atmosphere, a mingling of scented clothing, fine housekeeping, imperceptible to the careful but accustomed nose of Miss Isaphine, ever on the alert for forbidden things--cigarettes, strong perfumes, bubbling fudge after bedtime. At the ranch there was only the odor of fresh alfalfa blossoms to cover the smell of frying meat or sizzling frijoles.

“This will be your room, dear child.” Miss Carter was switching on the lights. Raquel blinked. How pretty! It was prettier than anything at San Antone’s big store. Prettier somehow than Raquel’s own room at home, and she had thought hers was surely the handsomest set of furniture in the world when Dad bought it for her last year.

“You will have a charming roommate, Lois Wainwright, one of our sweetest girls,” Miss Carter smiled professionally. “You had better dress for dinner now, dear, and then come down to the drawing-room as quickly as you can.”

Left alone, Raquel stood for a moment, smiling, excited. Well, here she was. All these girls to be friends with! And she had to learn to act pretty, like them. Dress for dinner, the teacher had said. Was there anything wrong with her new suit? She had thought it very plain-looking, but that was what they had told her to get. Did Miss Carter mean for her to wear her party dress with elbow sleeves, or should she wear the Sunday dress with long sleeves? She knelt before the bags and threw them open--calfskin bags they were, handmade, and polished from a quarter century’s use. The Sunday dress was in the trunk.

They had forgotten to unstrap it, and Raquel attacked the clumsy-looking knotted rope with deft fingers. Custer was such a hand at roping, he couldn’t even let her new trunk be. Raquel was so absorbed that she did not hear the door softly open and close.

“I think there must be some mistake.” It was an almost artificially sweet voice. “I have this room to myself. Perhaps you’d better not unpack until you can be transferred.” Lois’ eyes took in the cheap trunk, the heavy leather valises.

Raquel rose. Surely this was the prettiest girl in the whole world. She could not take her eyes away.

“I reckon you must be Lois Wainwright, aren’t you?”

“Lois Wainwright is my name.”

“Why, then,” the brown hand shot out again, “you’re my roommate sure enough. I’m Raquel Daniels from Los Ranchos.”

But the pride and confidence in her voice faded as her empty hand fell to her side.

“It was Jimmy, Jim Hovey, your cousin, who told us about The Towers. And you being here, and all. And Dad wrote--Jimmy wrote, too--to you. Maybe you didn’t get the letter. He--” Raquel stopped, checked by the utter lack of response. “I’d have known you anywheres from your picture,” she said softly then.

“Really! How interesting,” Lois drawled indifferently. She fancied that her pointless remark was the essence of sarcasm. “My father, however, happened to engage my room for me early last summer. Yes, I believe Jimmy did write about you. But I don’t pretend to keep up with my cousin’s--er--acquaintances.”

It didn’t take schooling for the girl from Los Ranchos to know that she was not wanted. This strange burning in her cheeks and tightness in her throat made it necessary to get away as fast as she could. Stooping quickly, Raquel closed her grips, and striding to the door, threw it open and set the bags, ever so gently this time, outside. Then back; and lifting the heavy trunk on end, she dragged it swiftly and easily to the door, and bumped it over the threshold, Lois standing there motionless, like one fascinated by what she had done.

It was this tableau which flashed before Anne Marvin as she rounded the corner on her way to her room, and stopped before Lois’ open door--Lois standing cool, indifferent, in the center of the room, the new girl flushed, tense, there in the hall in the midst of her own luggage.

Anne knew just what had happened. That was clear enough.

“This is Raquel Daniels, isn’t it?” She laid a cordial hand on Raquel’s arm. “I’ve come up after you--to meet my new roommate. There was some mistake in the rooming plans, and we’re to be partners, you and I. Shall we go right on to my room? There’s just time before dinner.”

Raquel’s head came up proudly. Then she smiled at Anne. “Thank you. My mistake.”

“A game youngster,” thought Anne. She wouldn’t hold up a sore paw. Sporting!

And--here was a girl you could understand, Raquel felt. Easy-handed enough to gentle a stallion colt. That tight feeling in the chest, the hurt in her throat, eased. And if Anne Marvin winced at Raquel’s grip, it did not go unreturned this time.

It needed the reassurance of Anne’s handclasp to carry Raquel through that first meal at The Towers. Such fine linen and silver she had seen in San Antone, and for service, too, the Toltec Hotel, during the cattlemen’s convention, could not be surpassed.

But to sit in the company of all these easy-mannered girls!

“Do you find that even your clothing feels damp in the East, Miss Daniels?”

“Is it true that there’s only one family to a county in Texas, Miss Daniels?”

“Yes’m,” “No’m,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” and “No, Ma’am,” were all Raquel could find tongue for.

It was not until late the next afternoon that Anne Marvin was called to Miss Carter’s office, a formal room of which the girls stood in awe. But Anne never minded being summoned there.

Anne usually had her way in life. And this was as true at The Towers as it had been at home. There was a reasonableness and good humor in Anne’s way, a deep kindness of heart, that argued more eloquently than her words.

Tall, blonde, handsome, she was easily the best and the most simply dressed girl at school. Her hair was ashen fair, her skin a flushed ivory, and she wore tans, ashes of roses, sage greens, deep blues, avoiding the usual pinks and blues affected by blondes. “Insipid,” she said of them.

There was nothing insipid about Anne. Sports and studies alike came easily to her--far too easily, for, although she was talented, she was lazy. Everything had always come too easily to her--family, wealth, position, were hers by inheritance. She might have been a leader among the girls, but leadership did not seem worth exerting herself for. She did what amused or interested her, and read voraciously. She had just finished Cooper’s _Pathfinder_, and that wonderful tale of the Pueblo Indians, _The Delight Makers_, which had stirred her enthusiasm for the West. Then Raquel arrived, fresh from that land of adventure, a character out of a book.

Anne’s example did have a great deal of influence at school. She was copied and sought after. But she had not the slightest inclination to manage, and down in her heart she realized that her inertia was often not only lazy but selfish.

“Don’t make me a chairman”--“Don’t ask me to go to her party.” Anne, sprawled with a book, would wave an eager girl away, and offer a mollifying box of candy. “Eat this, please, darling, or I’ll be sick.” Or, “I’ll be skiing when that committee meets.” Anne would not compose the thesis on history that would have added to her own credits, but she did tutor Lillie Matthews so that Lillie could finish two years of French in one.

Needless to say, Anne was amiable, up to a certain point. She was furious with Lois now. But she, too, was “sporting.”

“It isn’t that Lois said anything to her, Miss Carter,” she smiled across the desk at Miss Hetty; “but one can see that Lois and Miss Daniels are not particularly suited to each other. I find her extremely interesting, and she seems not to object to me. So we just paired off.”

Miss Hetty smiled drily. Anne seemed to have taken an unusual amount of trouble!

“Of course I haven’t yet abandoned my custom of making such arrangements myself, Anne. When I do, I may consult the girls beforehand.”

Anne, reddening at the rebuke, still smiled disarmingly. “I thought, before she got settled, Miss Hetty--”

“Very well, Anne, if you wish it. But I thought you particularly wanted to be alone this winter so that you could give more time to extra subjects.”

“I will, Miss Hetty, I will. In fact, I’ll be the gainer, for Miss Daniels can coach me in Spanish; she speaks it like a native. And I will help her in some of her work.”

And so Raquel stayed in Anne’s room, which was plenty large enough for the extra furniture which had to be brought in. It was both gay and comfortable with its English chintzes, even if it was not as exquisite as that other room had been. But it suited Raquel better. Anne could not have imagined her in Lois’ setting of taffetas and filet laces.

As far as Raquel knew, nothing had been said of what happened the night of her coming to The Towers. It did not occur to her that the story had flashed over the whole school and that it was discussed by both younger girls and seniors that night and for a week afterward. Just what had happened, no one knew.

But why had Lois snubbed her? Raquel asked herself. She wasn’t good enough for her; that was it.

After that first night the girls left her alone, except for the perfunctory courtesies of the table. The novelty of the newcomer wore away in a week.

“It’s a curious thing,” observed Miss Hetty to her younger sister, “how all the girls make excuses for Lois Wainwright. She’s a spoiled and sometimes a cold-blooded little thing; I know perfectly well that she said or did something to hurt that Daniels girl. But not one of them would admit it.

“Lois has every one waiting on her and shielding her. But some day she’ll have to face life on her own. She’ll have her first lesson to learn, and this girl from the West may be the one to do it.” Even Miss Hetty was sometimes ungrammatical.

“But she has sweetness and charm.” Miss Isa rushed to Lois’ defense.

“When she wants to be sweet and charming,” Miss Hetty put in grimly. “She has you wound round her finger, too, Isaphine.”

“She’s generous to a fault,” Miss Isa defended stoutly, “always making gifts, and giving her own things away.”

“Yes, it gratifies her and doesn’t cost her anything. And that and her beauty are what bind the other girls to her.... And there is a something,” Miss Hetty mused; “I don’t myself know what it is. Her mother had it, and she was a lovable, selfish creature herself.

“Well, if it weren’t for Lois’ having lost her mother, and for her father’s invalidism, I really wouldn’t have her here another winter. She’s too capricious, and her extravagance sets a bad example. Her father denies her nothing. She spent more than a hundred and fifty dollars on that theater party which we allowed her to take in to town last week, and you know I don’t approve of fifteen-year-old girls doing such things.”

“What shall we do about Raquel Daniels?” Miss Isaphine hastily changed the subject. “Her clothes are not adequate. She hasn’t at all the wardrobe we advise, and I took special pains to describe everything in our correspondence with her father.

“And her hair, Hetty, that awful, masculine short hair! It makes her look so boyish. Hetty, I--”

Miss Hetty interrupted her sister with a withering glance. “What shall we do about her clothes? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Don’t you suppose the child thought they were adequate? Can’t you see the stuff she’s made of? Can’t you see she would suffer if we suggested she discard the clothes she’s brought? Wait until she finds out for herself what she wants to wear. Use a little common sense, Isa,” snapped Miss Hetty. “Besides, Anne Marvin has exceptional taste. She’ll learn.”

And Raquel, off in the wing room, was too absorbed in Anne’s company to give a thought to clothes. She was telling Anne all about Los Ranchos, and Dad, and Mother, and the boys--Grant and Custer and Georgie (he was twelve), and Jim Hovey, who was from Boston.

It helped the home hunger a lot to talk about it to willing ears. It was the only world Raquel knew, and under the spell of Anne’s sympathy she spread its sunny beauty, its simplicity, its vast unfenced reaches before her new friend.

“Dad, he was born under a covered wagon on the way west. His father and mother were the first people who pioneered into that valley of the Pecos. And Dad’s mother was a beauty in the South, though his father was pioneer stock from ’way back.

“Dad’s got an idea he wants me to have schooling. He’s sold more than seventy thousand head of cattle in the last four years, and he said, he and Mom, that this was the time for me to go to school. He aimed to have me learn banking and bookkeeping, because he and the boys have to carry every penny in their heads.

“And they thought I’d worn breeches and ridden the range long enough. They wanted me to go to San Antone at first, but Jimmy--that’s Jimmy Hovey--he persuaded ’em I should come to The Towers--” Raquel stopped a moment, flushing; then went on steadily; “Jimmy, he’s Lois Wainwright’s cousin. He said she was here and would be sweet to me.

“He thinks a lot of Lois and of her Dad. She was like a sister to him, he said; and he used to tease her a lot, but she needed it; though she was a good kid, he said.

“He had a picture of her on his bureau all the time. She was twelve. He hadn’t seen her since. She looked just as she does now. I sure liked to look at that picture. And Custer, he just loved it. He thought she was just like a fairy. He said when she grew up he wanted to marry that little girl!

“I thought when I came here, perhaps she would come back to the ranch to visit us sometimes. But now--” Raquel smiled pityingly at herself for ever having thought of such an impossible thing.

“She is pretty,” Anne conceded warmly. “And she _can_ be sweet when she hasn’t some contrary notion fixed in her mind. Her mother died when she was a tiny girl, you see; and her father, I think, was so afraid he would die, too--he’s sick, you know--and leave her alone that he always gave her everything she wanted.

“He tried to make up to her for the loss of her mother, and as a result, she didn’t know what it was to be crossed. I think she’d have been different if it weren’t for that.

“But tell me, Raquel, how did Jim Hovey happen to be in the West?”

“Lungs. He came out to our ranch and stayed there a long time. Dad and Mother took a fancy to him. We all did. And after Miss Angie left--she was our school teacher for six years, ever since I was seven--he made Dad let him teach us.

“He was a fine teacher. I love to hear him tell about history. He helped me prepare for the examination papers I had to write for Miss Carter before she said I could come here.”

“Raquel, do you mean to say that you’ve never been to regular school before? I think that’s wonderful!”

A warm flush at the praise spread into the roots of Raquel’s cropped hair. It embarrassed her, and she turned her face away; but she was glad to have Anne say it, for she felt a passionate loyalty to this new friend, her first girl friend.

“Well, you’re the only girl here that does.” Raquel grinned bashfully. “Oh, I know! I can see. I guess I don’t eat right or something, the way the girls at our table look at me sometimes. I suppose they’d be ashamed to ask me to their homes.”

“Oh, Raquel, you mustn’t say that! The girls haven’t had a chance really to know you yet. And they’re more or less taken up with the friendships they made last year, and getting settled, and their studies fixed up and all that. Wait until you’ve been at The Towers a few months, dear, and you’ll love it.”

“Oh, I’m glad I came anyways--anyway, I mean--although I guess the proper place for me would have been the State Agricultural College! But I’ve met you, and I’ll never forget that. And Dad wants me to have some life away from the ranch, he says.

“Mom does too. But she’s different from Dad. She doesn’t talk much. She says she was so much alone in the early days, with the mesa and the desert stretchin’ out so silent all ’round, that she guesses she forgot how to talk. Most ranch women are like that. And then when Dad came in, he would do all the talkin’.

“Mom says she wants me to have a plenty of pretty things to think about when I go back home. Ranch women are bound to be alone more or less. But I think it’s mighty pretty to raise the colts and gentle them. That’s my job at home.

“I’m more like Dad, I guess. I like to ride the range. And I haven’t forgotten how to talk.” Both girls laughed spontaneously. “But Dad seems to set a lot of store by his mother’s memory. Says he’d like for me to have some of the things she gave up when she and my granddad went West.

“And he wants me to be able to hold my own out in the world as well as on the range, he says. And I’ve got to do it.”

“Raquel, do you look like this grandmother?”

“Dad thinks so, because he wants to, but no one else seems to. Not even me, and I’d like to, myself! Do you want to see her picture?”

At Anne’s eager nod, Raquel laid before her roommate a tintype from which looked out a vivid, dark face. The finely-cut features, the way the head was set upon the slender throat, made you think of pride, and mettle, the endurance of a blooded horse. She smiled out at you in the strangely lifelike way that tinted tintypes have.

“She _is_ beautiful, Raquel,” said Anne at last, “and you are very like her, except for the curls, and--and the coquetry. I never realized before just how lovely you are.” Anne’s blue eyes looked up in frank and generous admiration at the finely featured brown face bending over her, the sleek, closely cropped brown head, which clever Anne saw had chic--in a day before the boyish bob was smart. She was growing tremendously fond of Raquel.

Too covered with embarrassed shyness to speak, Raquel brought out from the calfskin valise some snapshots of herself and the boys.

“Jimmy took these. There’s Dad. Isn’t he sweet?”--pointing at a tall, lean, bow-legged figure in the middle of the group, horny-handed, weather-beaten. “And Custer, he’s awfully handsome. Mom is right pretty, but she won’t ever stand up for a picture. She had one when she was married, she said, and she’s never had time to be dressed up since.”

“Why, Rakie, Rakie Daniels,” chanted Anne, “is this you in the beauteous leather breeches, with the silver belt and all those silver buttons? And look at the hat! Aren’t you wonderful! Did you bring them with you?”

Raquel grinned sheepishly.

“Took up the whole bottom of my trunk, and I guess I won’t get to wear ’em anyway.”

“Let me see ’em, quick! Oh, I want to wear--”

Some one was knocking insistently at the door, and Anne, springing up belatedly to answer, was drawn mysteriously into the hall.

“I really can’t,” Raquel could hear the answer. “No, well, I’m sorry, Lois, but if you can’t, I can’t.”

“Do you mean to say,” came in audible exasperation from the other side of the door, “that you won’t go anywhere without--” The door was quickly and decisively closed.

Anne came back in a few moments with an elaborate air of unconcern, but the magic spell was broken. Raquel had relapsed into the subdued, colorless, and somewhat stiff young person who took her seat each day at the table with the throng of careless, happy, moody, flippant, serious, generous, and thoughtless girls at The Towers.

* * * * *

Autumn flew by. The red haze of autumnal sunsets deepened, and each night the red haze of war, the Great War, spread further over the country, until at last it colored even the atmosphere of the schools, including that of The Towers School for Girls.

“Barry has enlisted with the French flying corps,” Anne announced one afternoon as Raquel came in to find her tearful but proud, a letter from home in her hand.

To youth, there was thrilling excitement in the Great Adventure. It did not loom with the deadly portent which weighted the spirits of their elders. Somehow it could not touch them with its lean and cruel finger, or had not, as yet.

There was a rush of gayeties, a feverish busyness, those days; innumerable parties planned to cheer the boys, to keep up their “morale.” Even the school girl was called upon to do her bit.

The girls at The Towers were to take charge of the booths at a Red Cross benefit fair to be held in the near-by village. Nearly all the older girls had been invited to a party and a dance to be given afterward for the lads about to sail for France.

Raquel had never yet been included in those little gayeties given surreptitiously in one girl’s room or another’s; she never seemed to be gathered into those little chatting bevies that foregather in a corner. And so far she had not been asked to take any part in preparations for the fair.

The older girls had been organized into committees of arrangements. Would they have her sell something, Raquel wondered. Shyness, partly, and partly the consciousness of that first snub, had held her aloof ever since her coming to The Towers. Raquel was not in the least selfconscious, but instinctively she drew herself into a shell of silence, and like the plants of her own desert, thrust out little thorny spikes that said “Keep off” just as effectively as if the words had been visible.

And she found little time for play in this new and ordered existence. The rising bell, the quick shower, adopted after observing Anne’s habits for a week; prayers, breakfasts--they always left her hungry for they were daintier but not half so satisfying as breakfasts at Los Ranchos--and then classes and study periods in quick succession.

Raquel worked hard and stood well in her studies at the end of the first half term, in spite of the fact that she could hardly understand the marked English accent of one of her teachers. She probably could not have understood her at all, had it not been for her experience with Jimmy Hovey’s crisp Boston elegance of diction.

She began to feel less constraint with the girls too. But she and Lois Wainwright had never spoken to each other since that first evening. Lois, whose serene face betrayed nothing of what might be passing within her head, gave no sign of any secret compunctions.

Once she stopped in the hall beside Raquel, however, as if to speak to her. But Raquel remained quietly studying the bulletin board, and after a moment Lois shrugged her shoulders and went on. Raquel knew that Lois was standing there, but she was afraid of another snub and had made up her mind not to put herself in the way of it. Raquel did not know how to forgive gracefully. In her country it was etiquette _not_ to forgive an insult. She had been brought up on tales of men’s vengeance, of killings for insults--Dad had always said a man could steal him blind, but insult him--never!

Once when a group of girls from The Towers were riding, Raquel and Marian, a plump, highly manicured girl of sixteen who was always in Lois’ wake, with several of the younger girls galloped ahead of the party. Raquel, who was well in the lead, became separated from the others as she mistook the road, turning off in another direction.

When finally she overtook her party, pulling up after a furious gallop, she was escorted by two nice-looking boys who reined in their mounts beside the girls. Marian recognized the boys as coming from a preparatory school about two miles from The Towers. Smiling her prettiest and edging her horse closer to Raquel’s, she waited for an introduction to the attractive strangers.

Raquel, untrained in such amenities and coquetries, was chatting easily and brightly with her appreciative companions.

“Thank you so much for settin’ me on my way. I sure was lost. That was a nice race we had, and I’ll be glad to beat you again any other day. These are my friends from The Towers.” She waved a comprehensive hand at the other girls. “But don’t let us make you any later.”

Marian was glaring at her, the other girls noticing her curiously, as if for the first time. How attractive Raquel was in her riding clothes! Why, she looked stunning! As the boys lifted their caps with a flourish and cantered away, Marian turned on Raquel.

“Well, what was the object in not introducing those boys?”

“Why-a,” stammered Raquel, “I don’t know their names. I--”

“Oh,” interrupted Marian scornfully, “so you picked them up! I suppose they do that sort of thing where you come from.”

Her sarcasm flew wide of the mark, because it was a simple truth.

“We don’t see any harm in thankin’ a stranger who is polite to us, an’ we let alone those who ain’t.” Raquel, furious, gathered her reins, and under a mysterious pressure of her knees, the horse sprang into a full run, and they were off and down the road in a clatter of shod hoofs before Marian could think of an answer.

“Gee,” said Nancy, one of the Gerould twins, “she surely got off on the right foot! The riding master can’t even do that, throw his mount into a run from a standstill. Thought you said, Marian, that cowgirl couldn’t ride a real horse?”

“Got off on the right word, too, if you ask me,” giggled Gloria, the other twin. “Who said she was dumb?”

Helen Virginia Jones, a plump southern girl of fifteen, made no comment, for she was busy thinking to herself that she would cajole her mother into getting her a new riding suit of that tan deerskin cloth, with the faintest twill, and have the breeches fitting snugly at the knees just as that Daniels girl’s did. Why, it was actually the smartest thing at The Towers!

Raquel might have felt happier had she heard her champions. And her habit _was_ beautiful. She had chosen the cloth because it did look like deerskin, and Anne’s tailor had done the rest. But her pleasure in the new outfit was spoiled, and all the way back she felt miserably guilty and uncomfortable at the rebuke.

The day for the Fair drew near. Every one except little Emmy Martin and the eleven-year-old Geroulds was planning a booth. But no one had yet said anything to Raquel about helping. Still, she really thought they would ask her. She would not have inquired about it for anything. Girls were strange, after all, Raquel felt. If it had been a bunch of men or boys, now--well, you could step right up and ask, straight out.

Anne, as usual, had shunted aside any committee work, with the easy assurance of plunging in at the last moment and doing whatever she could, whatever remained to be done, to help.

“They like it,” she argued comfortably; “it’s good for them. I don’t like it. And there’s always a lot to be done at the last. They always need some one to step in at the last minute.”

So she gave the Fair little thought and didn’t realize that Raquel was being left out.

Two days beforehand, Raquel, dressing back of a curtain in the Gym, heard her name.

“Raquel Daniels. Dress her up and take her along. I like that girl and she surely can ride.”

“No,” impatiently, in Marian’s voice. “She’s such a stick. She couldn’t wear the clothes if she had ’em. No! Can’t be bothered. She wouldn’t know how to act, and the fellows simply wouldn’t have a good time with an unattractive girl. Cowgirl! What does she know of--of romance, or managing things?”

“Oh, I think you ought to ask her.” It was Helen Virginia’s voice, amiable and drawly. “She’s not even been given a booth at the Fair. Why not put her at the fudge booth? She can surely sell candy.”

“Raquel Daniels couldn’t sell Red Cross stamps! Besides, Lois’s the chairman and she’s got it all arranged. Raquel will have to help her country some other way.” And there was a laugh.

Raquel had wanted to speak,--to let them know at once that she was there. But instinctive kindness kept her from presenting herself, to the embarrassment of the speakers, when unkind things had been said about her. But the last words--these girls sure used a mean quirt. Tears stung Raquel’s eyes. She could not have uttered a word. Then rage boiled up to her rescue.

So they wouldn’t even let her sell fudge? A little old candy! Why, all they could make and sell wouldn’t bring as much as one good steer. Well, there were other ways of helping one’s country. Perhaps she didn’t know how to dress or act. Why should she? But she _could_ go back and ride the range, and raise stock to feed the armies.

Beef’d carry ’em a lot further than fudge. At the comforting thought Raquel was able to smile.

In her pocket was a letter from Dad. Custer had enlisted one day and Grant the next. They were already in training camp. And good old Jimmy, who couldn’t make it for overseas service, was teaching at one of the new training camps.

“But all right, little girl,” wrote Dad. “We don’t need you--at least not yet. You just stay on and get all the learnin’ and fun you can. I’ll let you know when I need you.”

Dad had always said she was as good as a couple of hands; she burned to show him what she could do now.

* * * * *

After all Raquel did not have to endure the Fair where she could not help. Coming into her room the next afternoon, dispirited, feeling, she thought to herself, like a prickly pear, she was met by Anne waving a letter from her mother.

“You’re coming home with me for Thanksgiving. Yes, you are. Here’s a letter from Mother saying so. I didn’t know whether she’d have room or not, and as she always _makes_ room if one of us asks to bring some one home, I waited. Come on, Rakie, let’s go tonight.”

It was a home-coming that Raquel never forgot; Anne’s father, eyes twinkling, voice booming out, “Well, here’s our little Texan;” Anne’s mother, clasping Raquel close, mothering her, so that she felt at once enveloped in affection and understanding. She marveled at the personal daintiness of Anne’s mother, the faintly scented lace in her bosom, so different from Raquel’s own best violet soap at ten cents a cake. Why, Anne’s mother had gray hair, yet she was dressed up as pretty and sweet and her hair was done as nicely as a young girl’s.

The great house with its crystal lights, its damask walls, its bowls of flowers, was to remain always in Raquel’s mind as an incredible vision, somehow too beautiful for daily use. If school had seemed luxurious it now paled into simplicity beside the finished elegance of the Marvin house, where living was made a fine art.

There was breakfast in bed the next morning on a tray that looked like a bed of Mom’s posies, sure enough. There was a maid to draw her bath, and slip her feet into red leather shoes, and throw a velvety red robe around her shoulders.

“A guest gift from Mrs. Marvin, Miss,” she explained.

Raquel didn’t see Anne until ten o’clock, when she came trailing in in great good spirits.

“Shopping. You and me, Rakie. Come on, the car’ll be here in ten minutes.”

There were shops and things such as Raquel had never dreamed of. And Anne looking at all sorts of clothes! That pink and flame georgette--oh, Raquel had never really wanted clothes like this before!

The money Dad had given her--she had spent but a little of it yet, for her riding habit. This was the time to do it. She would get some new clothes to wear at Anne’s house. This novel idea was no sooner imparted to Anne than saleswomen came hurrying, and racks and chairs bloomed.

Try them on? But of course.... Mademoiselle had an excellent straight back.... But she must not be stiff. But there, that was better. Relax. So!

It was a different Raquel who emerged from that shop an hour later, in a simple suit of golden tan tweed, a jaunty hat of dark brown velour, and a Scotch heather top coat.

And it was a vision in pale pink and flame-color, satin-shod, that descended the staircase in the Marvin home the next evening, Thanksgiving night. At the foot Barry Marvin, home for the holidays, fine and handsome in his uniform, waited for her--waited to take her in to dinner.

“Oh, God,” prayed Raquel earnestly, “I can ride a bucking bronco, I can rope and tie a Latin verb, but, oh, God, please, don’t let me slip on the floors and disgrace myself before Anne’s family.”

“What a pity the girls at school couldn’t see Raquel now,” thought Anne. If Lois could, she would either turn a little bit green or else come around generously, in the way her friends adored, and admit Raquel the equal of any girl at school, even if she couldn’t see her superiority when it wasn’t dressed up.

But Lois was not to see Raquel in the chiffon gown. The flowering was but for a night. And there, too, Fate was to take a hand. For Barry Marvin carried away with him when he sailed for France that week the memory of a vivid dark face, lit from within with candles of happiness that seemed to warm to life an unexpected humor.... Or was it just the surprise of such penetrating honesty, such simple candor?

Barry, the charmer, the gay and reckless Barry who was never hard hit by any girl! But this was different. A little girl, he said to himself, just a little Texas girl. But what a find! A memory for any chap to tie to!

Anne, crouching on Raquel’s bed late that night, talked and talked, laughing, romancing, going off in gay flights of imagination which literal-minded Raquel could scarcely follow. “La Principessa Raquela, with the spell cast off. She was a bewitched princess shut up in The Towers.”

“Hmm. You’re more like it. I always pictured you,” Raquel’s thought came hesitatingly, “when we read that poem, _The Princess_. I never did see any one look more beautiful than you did tonight, Anne. You sure did look lovely in that changeable taffeta, blue and silvery. And your hair braided round your head shines so.

“I was just thinkin’ how the boys, Grant and Custer, and Russell and Jami--they’re our ropers I told you about--would sit up and stare if they could see you. Oh, Anne, you must come out to Los Ranchos some day. We’d sure treat you like a princess.

“Me, I’m just a desert plant. Made to stand a hard life--and bloom once in fifteen years. Tomorrow I’ll be the same old ugly Rakie again.”

* * * * *

There was a long yellow envelope awaiting Raquel when she and Anne set down their bags three mornings later in the great hall at The Towers, a night message from Dad.

“Enlisted today. Assigned to animal transport section,” it ran. “Need you back to run the rancho.” He was to leave as soon as she could get home. Dad enlisted! And she was to be the _Boss_ of the Lazy L!

Curiously enough Miss Hetty Carter was at almost the same moment reading a message from Mr. Wainwright. Lois was not to return to school, he was sorry to say. The doctors had ordered him west; he had little time to live, though Lois did not know it. And he felt that he could not bear to be parted from her--so she was going with him.

When the girls were assembled in the auditorium, Miss Hetty Carter stepped before them to make an announcement. Something in her manner commanded a deeper hush than usual.

“I have two announcements to make which I know you will all be sorry to hear.”

The news of Lois’ departure was received with whispered “Ahs” of surprise and disappointment, which rose from all over the assembly room.

Miss Carter waited a moment and then spoke quietly. “We have had with us this year another classmate whom some of you have not come to know very well--Raquel Daniels. Raquel is in her room now, packing to leave us. She has been called home to run the ranch while her father and brothers are at war.

“It is a big thing to do, an important one. And it falls upon the shoulders of a girl of barely sixteen years. I should be happy if you would offer Raquel some evidence of your good wishes and appreciation of what she is doing for her country.”

* * * * *

It was always bewildering to Raquel, the recollection of that leave-taking at The Towers. Deep in the old trunk, with Anne sorting her traveling clothes, she rose at a knock to see the whole school, apparently, trying to crowd into her room. Girl after girl, they squeezed in, and then bright little Lillie Matthews was speaking for them.

They’d heard she was going. They were all so, so sorry. But wasn’t it splendid? And The Towers was so proud of her; any one who could be really useful. And here was a token of their esteem. And earnest little Lillie, eyes suddenly brimming, planted a kiss on Raquel’s cheek.

And then a shower of books, scarves, boxes of candy, girls’ trinkets, came pouring into Raquel’s lap and trunk, and Raquel was standing up before them all.

“I’m glad you came. Thank you. And for the presents. I--I don’t deserve any, but I’m sure glad not to quit an outlaw--to part friends.”

That same afternoon two west-bound trains sped into the setting sun, bearing two girls--one back to the country she knew and understood; the other away from all the scenes that knew and understood her, into a strange country where life might deal none too gently.