“The rangers are in the employ of the United States Government, and this garden is mine,” she stated evenly.  “How could I take a Government employee to work on my property?”

“But surely Mr. Thorne—­”

“Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted, as something that happens on well-regulated tables.”

She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up through the trees.  “He ought to be along soon now.  I hope so; my biscuits are just on the brown.”  She turned to Bob, her eyes dancing:  “Now comes the exciting moment of the day, the great gamble!  Will he come alone, or will he bring a half-dozen with him?  I am always ready for the half-dozen, and as a consequence we live in a grand, ingenious debauch of warmed-ups and next-days.  You don’t know what good practice it is; nor what fun!  I’ve often thought I could teach those cooks of Marc Antony’s something—­you remember, don’t you, they used to keep six dinners going all at different stages of preparation because they never knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness might choose to dine.  Or perhaps you don’t know?  Football men don’t have to study, do they?”

“What makes you think I’m a football man?” grinned Bob; “generally bovine expression?”

“Not know the great Bob Orde!” cried the girl.  “Why, not one of us but had your picture, generally in a nice gilt shrine, but always with violets before it.”

But on this ground Bob was sure.

“You have been reading a ten-cent magazine,” he admonished her gravely.  “It is unwise to take your knowledge of the customs in girls’ colleges from such sources.”

From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust.  Miss Thorne appraised it carefully.

“Warmed-overs to-night,” she pronounced.  “There’s no more than two of them.”

The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately verified by the appearance of two riders.  A moment later Thorne and California John dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance removed among the azaleas, and came up afoot.  The younger man had dropped all his dry, official precision, his incisive abruptness, his reticence.  Clad in the high, laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat and gay neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm, he seemed a different individual.

“Hullo!  Hullo!” he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew nearer; “I couldn’t bring you much company to-day, Amy.  But I see you’ve found some.  How are you, Orde?  I’m glad to see you.”

He and California John disappeared behind the shed, where the wash basin was; while Amy, with deftness, rearranged the table to accord with the numbers who would sit down to it.