Lee Chang came running from the bunk house, waving something tied in white paper.

“Apple tart, Miss Betty!” he called imploringly.  “Velly nice apple tart—­maybe the cook at that school no make good tarts.”

Betty took the package and thanked him warmly and they drove on.

“People are so good to me,” choked the girl.  “I never knew I had so many friends.”

“Well, that’s nothing to cry over,” advised Bob philosophically.  “You ought to be glad.  Do I get a crumb of the tart, Betsey?”

He spoke with a purpose and was rewarded by seeing Betty’s own sunny smile come out.

“You always do,” she told him.  “But wait till we get home.  I want Ki to have a piece, too.”

Ki, it developed, when they reached the Watterby farm, had been busy with farewell plans of his own.

“For you,” he announced gravely to Bob, handing him an immense hunting knife as he stepped out of the car.

“For you,” he informed Betty with equal gravity, presenting her a little silver nugget.

They both thanked him repeatedly, and he stalked off, carrying his piece of the apple tart and apparently assured of their sincerity.

“Though what he expects me to do with a hunting knife is more than I can guess,” laughed Bob.

CHAPTER V

A REGULAR CROSS-PATCH

“Be sure you send me a postal from Washington.  I never knew anybody from there before,” said Grandma Watterby earnestly.

“And don’t get off the train unless you know how long it’s going to stop,” advised Will Watterby.

“Do you think you ate enough breakfast?” his wife asked anxiously.

Bob and Betty were waiting for the Eastern Limited, and the Watterby family, who had brought them to the station, were waiting, too.  The Limited stopped only on signal, and this was no every day occurrence.

“We’ll be all right,” said Bob earnestly.  “You can look for a postal from Chicago first, Grandma.”

Then came the usual hurried good-byes, the kisses and handshakes and the repeated promises to “write soon.”  Then Bob and Betty found themselves in the sleeper, waving frantically to the little group on the platform as the Limited slowly got under way.

“And that’s the last of Flame City—­for some time at least,” observed Bob.

Betty, who had made excellent use of lessons learned in her few previous long journeys, took off her hat and gloves and placed them in a paper bag which Bob put in the rack for her.

“I did want a new hat so much,” she sighed, looking rather enviously at the woman across the aisle who wore a smart Fall hat that was unmistakably new.  “But Flame City depends on mail order hats and I thought it safer to wait till I could see what people are really wearing.”

“You look all right,” said Bob loyally.  “What’s that around that woman’s neck—­fur?  Why I’m so hot I can hardly breathe.”