“You bet!” Gilbert agreed.  He looked off at the quiet mountains, steadfast in their serenity, their crests seeming to kiss the sky.  This was God’s country, after all.  Sometimes he could not believe that he had come so gloriously into his own.  In the slow process of putting his ranch on a paying basis, after the turmoil of those weeks following the departure of Lopez, he had had the sustaining wonder of Lucia always beside him; and when little Pancho came upon the scene he felt that life was altogether too kind to him.  He had worked unremittingly; and not only had he had his own affairs to absorb him, but “Red,” after his marriage to Angela, was forever ringing him up on the telephone, or coming over and asking his advice and help.  He was never too busy to throw out a word to his faithful friend; indeed, they had reached a cooeperative basis so far as the two properties were concerned, and the arrangement could not have worked out better.  The ranches touched each other, and after Jasper Hardy’s death a year and a half before, it seemed wise to form a sort of partnership.  There was no need of a written understanding; the two men simply said to each other that they would do certain things, install certain improvements, and share expenses and profits.  Nothing on paper for them!  No, siree, said “Red.”  He wouldn’t hear of it.  And everything had been as amicable as possible.

It was curious to see the change in Uncle Henry since the arrival of little Pancho.  Gilbert got him a brand-new wheel chair—­sent all the way to Phoenix for it—­to celebrate the great event; and Uncle Henry loved nothing better than to take the chap on his knee and give him a ride in the courtyard whenever Lucia would trust him to his care.  He never complained now.  He was deliriously happy, and with the new era of prosperity that had struck the household, he was given a Mexican boy as his own personal attendant, and he grew to take a kindly interest in him.  He taught him to read and write English.  Thus busily occupied, and loving Lucia because she loved his nephew so, his health improved, as well as his temper.  He could even tolerate “Red’s” harmonica; in fact, he often begged him to play it when the latter came over to midday dinner, and his legs had so improved that he could actually jiggle them to some merry tune.

“If you don’t look out, you’ll be dancin’ soon!” “Red” used to say on these happy occasions.  “You can shimmy now!”

“Shet your head!” Uncle Henry cried; but not angrily—­not now.  He laughed when he said it, and was secretly flattered that anyone thought he had such pep at his age and in his condition of semi-invalidism (for that is all it could be called now).

It was five o’clock when the Giddings family came.  They used the faithful little Ford for the short run; but they too had a big roadster, painted a flaming red, “to match the master’s hair,” Mrs. Quinn put it.

Angela, radiant in her motherhood, instantly compared notes with Lucia as to infant symptoms—­not that anything was the matter with either child; but she loved to be ready for any emergency, and had a natural fear that Panchita might be taken ill in the night sometime; and was everything in her home medicine-chest, that should be?