NEW PLANS

“Me make you velly nice apple tart.  Miss Betty.”  The Chinese cook flourished his rolling pin with one hand and swung his apron viciously with the other as he held open the screen door and swept out some imaginary flies.

Lee Chang, cook for the bunk house in the oil fields, could do several things at one time, as he had frequently proved.

The girl, who was watching a wiry little bay horse contentedly crop grass that grew in straggling whisps about the fence posts, looked up and showed an even row of white teeth as she smiled.

“I don’t think we’re going to stay for dinner to-day,” she said half regretfully.  “I know your apple tarts, Lee Chang—­they are delicious.”

The fat Chinaman closed the screen door and went on with his pastry making.  From time to time, as he passed from the table to the oven, he glanced out.  Betty Gordon still stood watching the horse.

“That Bob no come?” inquired Lee Chang, poking his head out of the door again.  Fast developing into a good American, his natural trait of curiosity gave him the advantage of acquiring information blandly and with ease.

Betty shaded her eyes with her hand.  The Oklahoma sun was pitiless.  Far up the road that ran straight away from the bunk house a faint cloud of dust was rising.

“He’s coming now,” said the girl confidently.

Lee Chang grunted and returned to his work, satisfied that whatever Betty was waiting for would soon be at hand.

“Bake tart ’fore that boy goes away,” the Chinaman muttered to himself, waddling hastily to the oven, opening it, and closing the door again with a satisfied sniff.

The cloud of dust whirled more madly, rose higher.  Out from the center of it finally emerged a raw-boned white horse that galloped with amazing awkwardness and incredible speed.  Astride him sat a slim, tanned youth with eyes as blue as Betty Gordon’s were dark.

“Got something for you!” he called, waving his arm in the motion of lasso-throwing.  “Catch if you can!”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Betty eagerly.  “What is it, Bob?  Be careful or you’ll break it.”

Bob Henderson reined in his mount and slipped to the ground.  The white horse contentedly went to munching dry blades of dusty grass.

“Bob, I do believe you’ve been silly,” said Betty, trying to speak severely and failing completely because her dimple would deepen distractingly.  “You know I told you not to do it.”

“How do you know what I’ve done?” demanded Bob, placing a square package in the girl’s hands.  “Don’t scold till you know what you’re scolding about.”

Betty, busy with the cord and paper, paused.

“Oh, Bob!” she beamed, her vivid face glowing with a new thought.  “What do you think?  I had a letter yesterday from Bobby Littell, and she’s going to boarding school.  And, Bob, so am I!  Uncle Dick says so.  And, Bob—­”