señor, mañana!’ He’ll do anything in the world you want him to do, mañana, and mañana never comes.

“However, you and I will get along. I like you. You are punctual. It’s a virtue. Never been late for anything in your life, have you?”

Amelia hardly knew what to answer, for Adair had made time seem both important and unimportant.

“Speak up,” the old man looked at her kindly now. “Don’t be modest like my young cousin here. Well, never mind,” he passed Amelia by as he saw that he had embarrassed her beyond her ability to speak. “I’ll take care of you later,” he ended before he turned to Rhoda.

“From the West, aren’t you?” he questioned the proud brown-eyed young girl. “Can tell in a minute. That carriage, the way you hold your head, your clear eyes. Even if I hadn’t heard that Western accent, I would have known.” Adair MacKenzie was proud of his ability to read character, and as he went from one of the young lassies to the other, he was pleased with himself and pleased with them, for their quiet acceptance of his outspokenness.

“A city girl. Just a little too shy.” Grace’s turn came last, and she had been dreading it. “You’ve got to learn to stick up for your own rights,” he had struck home here, he knew, and though he realized that Grace could take it with less equilibrium than any of the rest, he wasn’t going to spare her.

“Say, ‘boo,’ to you,” he went on, “And you’ll run. Isn’t it so?”

Grace said nothing, but nodded her head.

“Try saying ‘boo!’ back sometime,” he advised in a quieter tone than he had used to any of the other girls, “and see what happens. If the person you say it to doesn’t run, stand your ground and say it again, louder. But be careful,” he patted Grace on the shoulder, “and don’t scare yourself with your own voice.”

At this everyone laughed, including Grace, and Alice MacKenzie took her father by the arm and started toward the station. “If you don’t look out, father,” she warned, “I’ll say ‘boo!’ to you and then you’ll jump.”

“Oh, go along with you,” Adair MacKenzie pounded his cane on the wooden platform, and then shook it at his daughter, “If you don’t behave yourself, I’ll give you one last spanking that will hold you until you are as old and gray as I am.”

For answer, Alice laughed provocatively up into his face.

“Now, come on, you girls,” Adair frowned as best he could under the circumstances, “we’ve got to get along. And you too, you get a move on,” he pointed his cane, with this, at a tall, lanky blond young man.

At this, Nan and Bess, Rhoda and Grace, Laura and Amelia with one accord turned their eyes on Walker Jamieson.

“It’s real, girls.” Walker grinned down into their faces. “It moves and speaks, eats and sleeps just like the rest of the world. It does everything but work.” So saying, he winked quite openly at Alice and lengthened his steps so that he walked beside her father.

“First truth I’ve ever heard you utter,” Adair MacKenzie tried to sound brusk, but didn’t succeed very well. The truth was, of course, that he was intensely pleased with the prospect of spending his summer with this crowd of young people. And, though he would be the last person in the world to admit it, he was intensely flattered that this brilliant young newspaper man was in the party. “Not that he came,” he thought to himself as he noted, with some satisfaction, the regard with which Walker seemed to hold Alice, “to keep me company.” He sighed deeply as he finished the thought. Alice was his only child.

“Got everything?” Adair MacKenzie repeated the question with which he greeted the girls as they all approached the customs office. “Baggage checks? Tourist cards?”

At this, they all opened their purses and rummaged around in them.

“Shades of Glasgow.” Laura murmured into Nan’s ears. “Seems good to be going through this red tape again, doesn’t it?”

Nan nodded. She felt much the same as she did the day they had first stepped foot on foreign soil, an unforgettable experience that they all had talked over again and again since that morning in May when the great boat had been moored to the dock and they had walked, one after the other, down the gangplank to set their feet in Scotland for the first time. The adventures that had followed had made their vacation the most exciting of their lives as those who have read “Nan Sherwood’s Summer Holidays” all agree. Now, as they all walked forward toward the offices of the Mexican officials, Nan wondered idly what further adventures were in store for her.

“Señorita, your bag, señorita.”

“Why don’t you answer when you are called?” Walker Jamieson dropped back into step beside Nan. “Lady,” he prodded Nan with his elbow, “the handsome young Mexican with the neat little mustache that is running after us, is calling you.”

“Me?” Nan’s voice had a surprised ring to it. “Am I Señorita?”

“None other, for months to come, now.” Walker Jamieson answered. “You are Señorita Sherwood and you had better answer when these Señores call or they will be so much insulted that they will never recover.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Nan looked genuinely regretful as she turned to the tall thin native that had been following her.

“It is nothing,” he dismissed her concern with a wave of his hands, “but the Señorita has dropped her purse. May I give it to her?” He bowed gracefully as he presented it, and Nan felt that he couldn’t possibly have presented the finest gift in the world with more grace.

However, before she could possibly thank him, he disappeared. She turned to follow the others into the offices, rummaging through her purse, even as they had done, as she went.

“Why, it’s gone!” Nan looked first at her purse and then in the direction in which the obliging young Mexican had vanished.

“Uh-huh, we should have guessed,” Walker Jamieson shook his head sadly. “Dumb of me. What did he get?”

“My visitor’s pass!” Nan exclaimed. “Now, what will I do?” Involuntarily, they both looked toward Adair MacKenzie who was just disappearing through the door. Then they laughed.

“I don’t know, kid,” Walker liked this youngster that Alice had already filled his ears with tales about. “But you’re in for it. It’s tough, these days, getting duplicates of the things. Shall I break the news to the ogre,” he nodded in Adair MacKenzie’s direction. “He’ll explode, but you’ve just got to take it.”

CHAPTER IV
TROUBLE AT THE BORDER

“Here, here, what’s eating you two?” Adair MacKenzie came bursting forth from the door he had entered just a few moments before Nan’s encounter with the Mexican. “H-m-m, lost your pass, I’ll wager.” With the uncanny instinct of many peppery old gentlemen, Adair MacKenzie as soon as he saw the baffled expression on Nan’s face, jumped immediately to the right conclusion.

“Might have known that would happen. Should have taken care of them all myself. Can’t depend on women and girls. Always tell Alice that. Ought to have a safe place to keep things. Old pouch my mother used to strap around her waist was a good idea.”

Nan couldn’t restrain the smile that came to her eyes at this. She had known one person in her life who tied a bag around her waist. That was grim old Mrs. Cupp, assistant to Dr. Beulah Prescott, principal at Lakeview Hall. Legend had it that Mrs. Cupp had a dark secret the