"Well, I've got an idea," he said presently, "that will make that
all right, fourteen children or twenty, it won't make any
difference. Only, it may not appeal to you."

"Oh, it will--and you are an angel!" said the lady fervently.

"I've got a friend up the country here in a lumber-mill," Barry
explained, "Joe Painter--he hauls logs down from the forest to the
river, with a team of eight oxen. Now, if he'd lend them, and you
got a hay-wagon from Old Paloma, you wouldn't have any trouble at
all."

"Oh, but Barry," she gasped, her face radiant, "would he lend them?"

"I think he would; he'd have to come too, you know, and drive them.
I'll ride up and see, anyway."

"Oxen," mused Mrs. Burgoyne, "how perfectly glorious! The children
will go wild with joy. And, you see, my Indian boys--"

"Your WHAT?"

"I didn't mention them," said Sidney serenely, "because they'll walk
alongside, and won't count in the load. But, you see, some of those
nice little mill-boys who don't go to school heard the girls talking
about it, and one of them asked me--so wistfully!--if there was
anything THEY could do. I immediately thought of Indian costumes."

"But how the deuce will you get the costumes made?" said Barry,