"I'm going downtown, Dad," she announced.
Ridley stepped forward and lifted his hat. "May I walk with you, Miss Ramona?"
"Stop at the post-office and see if the buckboard driver is in with the mail, 'Mona," her father said.
The boy and the girl made a couple to catch and hold the eye.
They went down the street together chattering gayly. One of the things young Ridley knew how to do well was to make himself agreeable to girls. He could talk nonsense charmingly and could hold his own in the jolly give-and-take of repartee. His good looks were a help. So too was the little touch of affectionate deference he used. He had the gift of being bold without being too bold.
It was a beautiful morning and life sang in the blood of Ramona. It seemed to her companion that the warm sun caressed the little curls at her temples as she moved down the street light as a deer. Little jets of laughter bubbled from her round, birdlike throat. In her freshly starched white dress, with its broad waistband of red and purple ribbon, the girl was sweet and lovely and full of mystery to Ridley.
A little man with a goatee, hawk-nosed and hawk-eyed, came down the street with jingling spurs to meet them. At sight of Ramona his eyes lighted. From his well-shaped gray head he swept in a bow a jaunty, broad-brimmed white hat.
The young girl smiled, because there were still a million unspent smiles in her warm and friendly heart.
"Good-morning, Captain Ellison," she called.
"Don't know you a-tall, ma'am." He shook his head with decision. "Never met up with you before."
"Good gracious, Captain, and you've fed me candy ever since I was a sticky little kid."
He burlesqued a business of recognizing her with much astonishment. "You ain't little 'Mona Wadley. No! Why, you are a young lady all dressed up in go-to-meet-him clothes. I reckon my little side-partner has gone forever."
"No, she hasn't, Uncle Jim," the girl cried. "And I want you to know I still like candy."
He laughed with delight and slapped his thigh with his broad-brimmed ranger hat. "By dog, you get it, 'Mona, sure as I'm a foot high."
Chuckling, he passed down the street.
"Captain Jim Ellison of the Rangers," explained Ramona to her companion. "He isn't really my uncle, but I've known him always. He's a good old thing and we're great friends."
Her soft, smiling eyes met those of Arthur. He thought that it was no merit in Ellison to be fond of her. How could he help it?
"He's in luck," was all the boy said.