Pete wondered what it all signified.  He knew that The Spider had money deposited with the Stockmen’s Security.  The request had something to do with money, without doubt.  Perhaps The Spider had wished him to attend to some matter of trust—­for Pete was aware that The Spider had trusted him, and had said so, almost with his last breath.  But Pete hesitated to become entangled further in The Spider’s affairs.  He did not intend to make a second mistake of that kind.

Monday of the following week Pete was out on the veranda—­listening to little Ruth, a blue-eyed baby patient who as gravely explained the mysteries of a wonderful puzzle game of pasteboard cows and horses and a farmyard “most all cut to pieces,” as Ruth said, when Doris stepped from the hall doorway and, glancing about, finally discovered Pete in the far corner of the veranda—­deeply absorbed in searching for the hind leg of a noble horse to which little Ruth had insisted upon attaching the sedate and ignoble hind quarters of a maternal cow.  So intent were they upon their game that neither of them saw Doris as she moved toward them, nodding brightly to many convalescents seated about the veranda.

“Whoa!” said Pete, as Ruth disarranged the noble steed in her eagerness to fit the bit of pasteboard Pete had handed to her.  “Now, I reckon he’ll stand till we find that barn-door and the water-trough.  Do you reckon he wants a drink?”

“He looks very firsty,” said Ruth.

“Mebby he’s hungry, too,”—­and Pete found the segment of a mechanically correct haystack.

“No!” cried Ruth positively, taking the bit of haystack from Pete; “wet’s put some hay in his house.”

“Then that there cow’ll git it—­and she’s plumb fed up already.”

“Den I give ’at ’ittle cow his breakfuss,”—­and the solicitous Ruth placed the section of haystack within easy reach of a wide-eyed and slightly disjointed calf—­evidently the offspring of the well-fed cow, judging from the paint-markings of each.

But suddenly little Ruth’s face lost its sunshine.  Her mouth quivered.  Pete glanced up at her, his dark eyes questioning.

“There’s lots more hay,” he stammered, “for all of ’em.”

“It hurted me,” sobbed Ruth.

“Your foot?” Pete glanced down at the child’s bandaged foot, and then looked quickly away.

“Ess.  It hurted me—­and oo didn’t hit it.”

“I’ll bet it was that doggone ole cow!  Let’s git her out of this here corral and turn her loose!” Pete shuffled the cow into a disjointed heap.  “Now she’s turned loose—­and she won’t come back.”

Ruth ceased sobbing and turned to gaze at Doris, who patted her head and smiled.  “We was—­stockin’ up our ranch,” Pete explained almost apologetically.  “Ruth and me is pardners.”

Doris gazed at Pete, her gray eyes warm with a peculiar light.  “It’s awfully nice of you to amuse Ruth.”

“Amuse her!  My Gosh!  Miss Gray, she’s doin’ the amusin’!  When we’re visitin’ like this, I plumb forgit—­everything.”