The day passed so quickly that Ina could not realize what had become of the hours. There had been no noon meal to mark the flight of time. Her father had placed the summer camp under the same rule that prevailed among his cowboys’ outfits when on the open range—two meals a day.

Ina’s appetite this evening was not a thing to be denied, and she had the pleasure of helping her mother in the little cook tent of their own. Supper time brought Marvie, muddy and disheveled, wearing a long weary face.

“Aw, there ain’t any fish,” he burst out in reply to Ina’s solicitude. “I rode an’ walked about nine hundred miles. Nothin’ but mud. Nothin’ but tadpoles in that darned lake.”

“Did you get as—as far as Forlorn River?” asked Ina, experiencing a strange little thrill at the spoken words.

“Yep, but not very far up. I went to Ben Ide’s place. Doggone it, he wasn’t home! Looks like he’s been gone a long time. An’ I was just bankin’ on Ben.”

“Surely he will return soon,” said Ina, encouragingly, while she wondered on her own behalf. No doubt Ben was away on one of his wild–horse jaunts.

Marvie was not to be consoled, and his misfortunes of the day were brought to a climax when his father saw him.

“Where you been?” was the demand.

“Fishin’,” replied Marvie.

“Do you have to get dirty like that when you fish?”

“‘Course. I’m no city fisherman.”

“Marvin, I’ve a hunch you are a lazy good–for–nothin’ boy who hates work,” declared Mr. Blaine, severely.

“It ain’t so,” retorted Marvie, hotly. “You said I could fish all I wanted. This here is vacation time. I passed high in all my studies.”

“Yes, I know. An’ I’m not goin’ back on what I said. I was just thinkin’ how maybe this fishin’ an’ huntin’ might make you turn out like young Ben Ide.”

Marvie flushed red over all his dirty face, and manifestly there was an angry retort on his lips, but he caught Ina’s quick glance and held his tongue. He appeared at supper with clean blouse, shining face and hair, tactful improvement not lost upon the head of the family. Later Marvie came to Ina as she lay in her hammock watching the sunset, and he said with a thoughtfulness beyond his years:

“Sis, dad’s got Ben Ide on the brain. It’s funny, an’ I’d like to know why. Now what’s dad goin’ to say when it comes out that Ben isn’t what they make him?”

“Marvie, I wonder about that, too,” murmured Ina, with dimming eyes. She wanted to kiss Marvie for his boyish simplicity and faith.

Several days sped by, at once busy and restful for Ina, and altogether happy. The best development of this summer–camp plan was the improved mental condition of her mother. Mrs. Blaine had fallen upon old tasks, the habits of a lifetime that sudden wealth had denied her, and she became another woman. Ina noted with eager curiosity how her father was struck by the change, and thereby rendered thoughtful. At heart he was good and loving; and if an idea only pierced his dense brain it lodged there to become productive.