They were alone for hours every day, while their young hosts were off on the ranch, and they devoted part of this time to various useful and decorative arts.
They took all manner of liberties, poked about and rummaged, mended, sponged, assorted, and felt themselves completely mistresses of the situation.

A note to Marian Chase brought up a big parcel by stage to the Ute Valley, four miles away, from which it was fetched over by a cow-boy on horseback; and Clover worked away busily at scrim curtains for the windows, while Mrs.Hope shaped a slip cover of gay chintz for the shabbiest of the armchairs, hemmed a great square of gold-colored canton flannel for the bare, unsightly table, and made a bright red pincushion apiece for the bachelor quarters.

The sitting-room took on quite a new aspect, and every added touch gave immense satisfaction to "the boys," as Mrs.Hope called them, who thoroughly enjoyed the effect of these ministrations, though they had not the least idea how to produce it themselves.
Creature comforts were not forgotten.

The two ladies amused themselves with experiments in cookery.

The herders brought a basket of wild raspberries, and Clover turned them into jam for winter use.