“That’s a dear good boy,” approved Emma. “For that I shall buy you an ice cream cone.”
“Thanks,” grinned Stacy, hitching his horse.
“Suppose we all have dinner at the hotel,” suggested Grace, which suggestion was eagerly welcomed. “Jim, you go on to camp and take care of the horses. We will walk back after dinner.”
“Before going farther, I wish to say that Stacy must apologize to the gentleman to whom he made the rude remark,” reminded Emma.
To this the fat boy made no reply, but after the Overlanders had brushed the dirt from their clothes and started for the front of the hotel, Emma stepped up beside him and gently tugged at his sleeve. “There sits the gentleman now. Go and apologize to him,” she directed.
Stacy nodded, and, reaching the veranda, he walked up to the man to whom he had made the discourteous remark.
“I am sorry, sir, that I answered you discourteously when you came out to see if I was hurt,” said Stacy humbly.
“Oh! You are the young man who came a cropper,” answered the gentleman, laughing good-naturedly.
“No, sir. I am the rider that took a high dive from my horse. I—I didn’t mean to be discourteous. I apologize.”
“Don’t speak of it, young man,” answered the gentleman cordially.
“Thank you, I won’t. Just the same, I think that a dive like that before each meal might reduce your flesh and do you a lot of good,” added the fat boy, eyeing the rather corpulent gentleman critically.
The Overland Riders groaned, for Stacy had undone whatever good he might have accomplished. Instead of being disturbed at Stacy’s remark, however, the gentleman introduced himself, saying that he was Colonel Scott, President of the C. V. & A. Railroad. Stacy then introduced him to “Grace Harlowe Gray’s Overland Riders.”
“Eh? Grace Harlowe Gray?” repeated the colonel reflectively. “Where have I heard that name? I seem to know it well, and yet—” He regarded the flushed face of Grace with inquiring gaze. “No, there is nothing familiar to me in that face, but somehow the name revives old memories. Do I know you?”
“I believe you have never seen me before, sir.”
“But the name is so familiar,” persisted the colonel.
“I am not at all amazed at that, sir, for under that name I once sent you a message that might have been, and probably was, construed as impudent,” she said, flushing still more deeply.