SUMMER AT HORSESHOE RANCH

In her late teens Karen Pedersen finds herself shouldered with the responsibility of managing the family ranch near Santa Barbara, California. Her father is dead and her mother teaches high school, which prevents her from doing much more than the housekeeping end of things. But Karen is a capable girl who loves the land and horses; she takes on the job willingly. Nevertheless to pay a debt she must sell her palomino to Jack Carlson, a summer visitor from New York, exacting from him a promise beforehand that he will care for the horse faithfully and let no one else near it. When Jack goes back on his word, partly through the influence of spoiled rich girl who ""bewitches"" him, there are upsets but his finer nature wins through and his career as a doctor envisions a future in which he, Karen and Horseshoe Ranch are all in the picture. An average romance. If its young people seem more capable than most, the effect at least is salutary.