“Well, it’s this way, Gail.  Mat doesn’t know the straight of it,” Beverly began, dramatically.  “There’s going to be a war, or something, in Mexico, or somewhere, and a lot of soldiers are coming here to drill, and drill, and drill.  And then—­”

The boy paused for effect.

“And then, and then, and then—­or some time,” Mat Nivers mimicked, jumping into the pause.  “Why, they’ll go to Mexico, or somewhere.  And what Bev is really trying to tell hasn’t anything to do with it—­not directly, anyhow,” she added, wisely.  “The only new thing is that Uncle Esmond is going to Santa Fe right away.  You know he has bought goods of the Santa Fe traders since we couldn’t remember.  And now he’s going down there himself, and he’s going to take you boys with him.  That’s what Bev is trying to get out, or keep back.”

“Whoopee-diddle-dee!” Beverly shouted, throwing himself backward and kicking up his heels.

I jumped up and capered about in glee at the thought of such a journey.  But my heart-throb of childish delight was checked, mid-beat.

“Won’t Mat go, too?” I asked, with a sudden pain at my throat.  Mat Nivers was a part of life to me.

The smile fell away from the girl’s lips.  Her big, sunshiny gray eyes and her laughing good nature always made her beautiful to Beverly and me.

“I don’t want to go and leave Mat,” I insisted.

“Oh, I do,” Beverly declared, boastingly.  “It would be real nice and jolly without her.  And what could a little girl do ’way out on the prairies, and no mother to take care of her, while we were shooting Indians?”

He sprang up and took aim at the fort with an imaginary bow and arrow.  But there was a hollow note in his voice as if it covered a sob.

“She can shoot Indians as good as you can, Beverly Clarenden, and, besides, there isn’t anybody to mother her here but Jondo, and I reckon he’ll go with us, won’t he?” I urged.

Mothering was not in my stock of memories.  The heart-hunger of the orphan child had been eased by the gentleness of Jondo, the championship of Mat Nivers, and the sure defense of Esmond Clarenden, who said little to children, and was instinctively trusted by all of them.

With Beverly’s banter the smile came back quickly to Mat’s eyes.  It was never lost from them long at a time.

“Beverly Clarenden, you keep your little mouth shut and your big ears open,” she began, laughingly.  “I know the whole sheboodle better ’n any of you, and I’m not teasing and whimpering both at the same time, neither.  Bev doesn’t know anything except what I’ve told him, and I wasn’t through when you got here, Gail.  There is going to be a big war in Texas, and our soldiers are going to go, and to win, too.  Just look up at that flag there, and remember now, boys, that wherever the Stars and Stripes go they stay.”

“Who told you all that?” Beverly inquired.