CHAPTER XVIII

DESIRE OUTWEIGHS DISCRETION

Following Virginia's barely audible words there was a long silence. Her eyes, dark with the trouble in them, rested upon Norton's face and saw the frown go from his brows while slowly the red seeped into his bronzed cheeks. For the first time in her life she saw him staggered by the shock of surprise, held hesitant and uncertain. For a little there was never a movement of his rigid muscles; one hand rested upon the butt of his revolver, the other was closed upon the stack of gold pieces. When at last he found his tongue it was to accuse her.

"You trapped me," he said bitterly.

"With golden bait," she admitted, her voice oddly spiritless. "Yes."

"Well," he challenged, "what are you going to do about it?"

"Do? I don't know!"

Again they grew silent, studying each other intently. Norton, his poise coming back to him as the unusual color receded from his face, smiled at her with an affectation of his old manner. Suddenly he stepped back to her table, noiselessly set down the coins, eased himself into a chair.

"You wished to thresh things out? I am ready. And in case we should be interrupted, you know, I have called on you in your official capacity. We'll say that I am troubled by the old wound in the head; that will do as well as anything, won't it?"

"It was you who robbed the bank at Pozo!" she cried softly, leaning toward him, the look in her eyes one of dread now. "And the mine superintendent at Las Palmas? And I don't know how many other people. It was you!"

She had startled him in the beginning; she knew she would not draw another sign of surprise from him. He had himself under control, and long years of severe training made that control complete. He merely looked interested under her sweeping accusation.

"You must have a reason for a charge like that," he remarked evenly.

"Do you deny it?"

"I deny nothing, I affirm nothing right now. I say that you must have a reason for what you state."

"You put the incriminating evidence in del Rio's trunk," she ran on hurriedly. "The canvas bags of gold. Didn't you?"

"Reason?" he insisted equably.

"You took Caleb Patten's fountain pen! I saw you."

He lifted his brows at her. Then he laughed softly.

"In the first place," he replied thoughtfully, "I really believe that he is not Caleb at all but Charles Patten. We'll talk of that later, however. In the second place isn't it rather humorous to wind up by accusing a man with the theft of a fountain pen after your other charges?"

"Answer one question," she urged earnestly. "Please. It is only a small matter. Give me your word of honor that you will answer it truthfully."

He was very grave as he sat for a moment, head down, twirling his big hat in slow fingers. Then he smiled again as he looked up.

"Either truthfully or not at all," he promised her. "My word of honor."

She was plainly excited as she set him her question, seeming at once eager and afraid to have his response.

"I saw you take Patten's fountain pen and a scrap of note-paper from the table by your bed when you were hurt--the first time I called to see how you were doing. I thought that perhaps there was something of importance written on the paper, that, if nothing else, you wanted a bit of Patten's handwriting to use in your proof that he was not the man he pretended to be. You slipped both pen and paper under your pillow. Tell me just this: Was that paper of any importance whatever, of any interest even, to you?"

"No," he said steadily, without hesitation. "It was not. I did not so much as look at it."

She leaned back in her chair with a long sigh, her eyes wide on his. And while he marvelled at it, he saw that now her look was one of pure pity.

"Just what has that got to do with the robberies you mention?"

"Everything!" she burst out. "Everything! Can't you see? Oh, my God!"

She dropped her face into her hands and he saw her shoulders lift and slump. Glancing aside swiftly, he saw the five golden disks on the table, almost to be reached from where he sat.

"No doubt," he said hastily, as her head was lifted again, "you think that you would like to send me to jail?"

"Jail, no! A thousand times no! But you must, you must let me send you to a hospital!"

He frowned at her while he gave over twirling his hat and grew very still.

"You think I am crazy?" he asked sharply. "That it?"

"No. You are as sane as I am. I don't think that at all. But . . . Oh, can't you understand?"

"No, I can't. You accuse me of this and that, you give no reasons for your wild suspicions, you end up by suggesting medical treatment. What's the answer, Virginia Page?"

"The answer, Roderick Norton, is a very simple one. But first I am going to ask you another question or so. You sought to commit a theft to-night, I saw you, so there is no use denying it to me, is there?"

"Go ahead. What next?"

"While you lay ill during a week or ten days you had time to think. You remember having told me that you had had time to think about everything in the world? It was at that time, wasn't it, that you came to the decision which you mentioned to me that a man to commit crime and play safe at the same time must keep in mind two essential matters: First, the lone hand; second, not to kill?"

"I thought it out then; yes. In fact, I suppose I told you so."

"The crimes committed recently have been characterized by these two essentials, haven't they? Nearly all of them?"

He nodded, watching her keenly, holding back his answers for just a second or two each time.

"I believe so."

"Did you ever have an impulse to steal before you were knocked unconscious at the Casa Blanca?"

"No."

"And you have had that impulse almost all the time ever since? Answer me, tell me the truth! I am right, am I not?"

Now again he laughed softly at her.

"Virginia Page, the medico, speaks," he returned lightly. "She has a theory. A man may have such an accident, leaving such and such pressure on the brain, with the result that he becomes a thief or worse! Virginia . . ."

"Theory! It is no theory. It is an established, undeniable, and undenied fact! It has occurred time and again, physicians have observed, have made cures! Can't you see now, Rod Norton? Won't you see?"

She was upon her feet, her hands clasped before her, her eyes shining, her figure tense, her cheeks stained with the color of her excitement.

"I don't care whether Patten is a physician or not," she ran on. "He is a bungler. It is a sheer wonder he did not let you die. You told me yourself that he attributed the second wound to your fall and that you knew that Moraga had struck you a terrible blow with his gun-barrel. Patten did not treat that wound; he cared for the lesser injury like a fool and allowed the major one to take care of itself. And the result . . . Oh, dear God! Think of what might have happened. If any one but me had learned what I have learned to-night."

He rose with her, stood still, regarding her with eyes like drills. Then he shook his head.

"You are wrong, Virginia, dead wrong," he told her with quiet emphasis. "You have called me a thief? Well, perhaps I am. You have given your explanation; let me give mine."

He paused, shaping the matter in mind. His face was stern and very, very grave. Presently, his lowered voice guarded against any chance ears, he continued.

"I lay on my bed a week, a long, utterly damnable week. I could do nothing but think. So I thought, as I told you, of everything. Most of all I thought of you, Virginia Page. Shall I tell you why? No; we'll let that go until we understand each other. I thought of myself, of my life, of my eternal striving with Jim Galloway. Some day I should get Galloway or he would get me. In either case, what good? Was not Galloway a wiser man than I? He took what he wanted; I merely wasted my time chasing after such bigger men as he. If he desired a thousand dollars or five, ten thousand, he went out for it like a man and took it. Why shouldn't he? Oh, I tell you I had the time to dwell upon the little meaningless words of honesty and dishonesty, honor and dishonor, and all of their progeny and forebears! They are empty; empty, I tell you, Virginia! When I stood on my feet again I was a free man. I knew it then, I know it now. Free, I tell you. Free, most of all from shackles of empty ideas. What I wanted I would take."

She looked at him helplessly, his dominant vigor for the moment seeming a thing not to be restricted or tamed.

"What you have done," she told him gently, "is to find argument to bolster up impulse. That is generally very easy to do, isn't it? If one wants a thing, it is not hard convincing himself that it is right that he should have it."

"At least I have decided sanely what I wanted, there is no call for hospitals."

"You sustained a fracture of the skull. That fracture had improper treatment. It is a wonder you did not die. The wound healed and there remains a pressure of a bit of bone upon the brain. Until that pressure is removed by an operation you are doomed to be a criminal. A kleptomaniac," she said steadily, "if not much worse."

"I believe that you mean what you say. You are just mistaken, that is all. I'd know if there were anything physically wrong."

She came closer, laid her hand upon his arm, and lifted her eyes pleadingly to his.

"I have had the best of medical training," she said slowly. "I have specialized in brain disorders, interested in that branch of my work until I decided to bring Elmer out here. I know what I am saying. Will you at least promise to do as I ask? Have a thorough examination by a specialist? And have the operation if he advises it?"

"Such an operation is a serious matter?" "Yes. It must be. But think . . ."

"A man might die under the hands of the surgeon?"

"Yes. There is always the danger, there is always the chance of death resulting from any but the most minor of operations. But you are not the man to be afraid, Rod Norton. I know that."

"You say that you have specialized In this sort of thing." He was probing for her thoughts with keen, narrowed eyes. "Would you be willing to perform that operation for me?"

She shrank back suddenly, her hand dropping from his arm.

"No," she cried. "No, no."

He smiled triumphantly.

"Then we'll let it go for a while. If you wouldn't care to do it, afraid that I might die under your knife, I guess I don't want it done at all. I am quite content with things as they are. I see the way to gain the ends I desire; I am gaining them; if there is a brain pressure, well, I'm quite ready to thank God and Moraga for it! Which you may take as absolutely final, Dr. Page!"

She was beaten then and she knew it. She went back to her chair in a sort of bewildered despair, her hands dropping idly to her lap.

"It would be just as well," he said presently, "if I left before any one came in. Before I go, do you mind telling me what you mean to do? Shall you denounce me? Are you going to spread your suspicions abroad?"

"What do you leave me to do? Have I the right to sit still and say nothing? You would go on as you have begun; you would commit fresh crimes. In spite of your 'two essentials' you would be led to kill a man sooner or later. Or you yourself would be killed. Have I the right to allow all of that to continue?"

"Then you have decided to accuse me?"

"It is so hard to decide anything. You make it so hard; can't you see that you do? . . . But, after all, my part is clear; if you will consent to an examination and an operation I will say nothing of what has happened. If you won't do that . . . you will drive me to tell what I know."

"Our trails divide to-night, then? I had hoped for better than that, Virginia."

Though her cheeks flushed, she held her eyes steadily upon his.

"I, too, had hoped for better than that," she confessed, finding this no time for faltering. "I should continue to hope if you would just do your part."

He came a swift step toward her. Then he stopped suddenly, his hands falling to his sides. But the light in his eyes did not diminish.

"Denounce me to-morrow, if you wish," he said slowly, indifferently it seemed to her. "Accept my promise that I will attempt no theft of more gold to-night; give me this one last chance to talk with you. Before some one comes, come out with me. You are not afraid of me; you admit that I am sane. Then let us ride together. And let me talk with you freely. Will you, Virginia? Will you do that one favor for me?"

The high desire was upon her to accede to his request; her calmer judgment forbade it. But to-night was to-night; to-morrow would be to-morrow. And, after all, in her talk with him, she might save the man to himself and to his truer manhood.

But even that hope was less than her desire when she answered him.

"Have my horse saddled," she said. "I'll let Struve think I have to make a call at Las Estrellas. I'll be out in five minutes."

He thanked her with his eyes, opened the hall door, and went out.

CHAPTER XIX

DEADLOCK

Virginia, having changed swiftly to her riding-togs, took up her little black emergency kit, which would lend an air of business urgency to her nocturnal ride with Norton, and stepped out into the hall.

"There's a call for you from Las Estrellas," said Struve, appearing from the front, whence his voice had come to her mingled with the excited tones of a Mexican. "Tony Garcia has been hurt; pretty badly, I expect. His brother says that Tony got his hand caught in some kind of machinery he was fooling with late this afternoon and crushed so that it's all but torn off."

Into the light cast by the hotel porch-lamp Norton, leading Persis, rode around the corner of the building.

"I was just going out," said Virginia. "But I'll go on this case first. Mr. Norton is riding with me. Please ask him to wait while I get my other bag."

In her room again, the lamp lighted on her table, she stood a moment frowning thoughtfully into vacancy. Then with a quick shake of the head she snatched up the two other bags which might be needed in treating Tony's hurt and again hastened out. Norton bending from his saddle took them from her. As Struve relinquished into her gantletted hands the reins of Persis's bridle she swung lightly up to the mare's back.

"The poor fellow must be suffering all kinds of torture," she said as Norton reined in with her. "Let's hurry."

He offered no answer as they clattered out of San Juan and turned out across the level lands toward Las Estrellas. So, as upon another night when speeding upon a similar errand, they rode for a long time in silence. Again they two alone were pushing out into the dark and the vast silence that was broken only by the soft thudding of their own horses' hoofs and the creak of saddle leather and jingle of spur and bit chains.

"You wanted to talk with me?" suggested the girl after fifteen minutes of wordless restraint between them.

"Yes," he answered. "But not now. That is, if you will give me a further chance after you have done what you can for poor old Tony. You will hardly need to stay at Las Estrellas all night, I imagine. When we leave you can listen to me. Do you mind?"

"No," she said slowly. "I don't mind. I'd rather it was then. You and I have a good bit to think about before we do any talking. Haven't we?"

They fell silent again. The soft beauty of the night over the southern desert lands . . . and there is no other earthly beauty like it . . . touched the girl's soul now as it had never done before; perhaps, similarly, it disturbed shadows in the man's. She was distressed by the position in which she found herself, and the night's infinite quiet and utter peace was grateful to her. As she left the hotel her thoughts were in chaos; she was caught in a fearsome labyrinth whence there appeared no escape. Now, though no way out suggested itself, still the stars were shining.

At last the twinkling lights of Las Estrellas, seeming at first fallen stars caught in the mesquite branches, swam into view. Plainly Tony's accident had stimulated much local interest; among the few straggling houses men came and went, while a knot of women, children, and countless mongrel dogs had congregated just outside of the hut where the injured man lay. A brush fire in the street crackled right merrily, its sparks dancing skyward.

"You promise me," said Norton as they drew their horses down to a trot, "not to say anything until we can have had time to talk?"

"I promise," she said wearily.

She entered the sufferer's room first, Norton delaying to tie the horses and lift down the instrument cases from the saddle-strings. She stopped abruptly just beyond the threshold; the smell of chloroform was heavy upon the air, Tony lay whitefaced upon a table, Caleb Patten with coat off and sleeves rolled up was bending over him.

"Oh, señorita!" cried a woman, hurrying forward, her hands twisting nervously in her apron. And a torrential outpouring in Spanish greeted the mystified Virginia.

"I thought that I was wanted here," she said, looking about her at the four or five grave faces. "Tony's brother came for me."

One of the men shambled forward to explain. "Tony want you," he said quickly. "Tony ver' bad hurt. Dr. Patten come in Las Estrellas by accident, he say got to cut off the arm, can't wait too long or Tony die. He just beginnin' now."

The woman, who, it appeared was Tony's wife and the mother of two of the ragged children out by the fire, joined her voice eagerly to the man's. He translated.

"Eloisa say she thank God you come; Tony want you, she want you. Patten charge one hundred dollar an'. . . ." He shrugged eloquently. "She say you do for Tony; you do better than Patten."

Virginia's eyes flashed upon Patten. He came a step toward her, his attitude half belligerent.

"The man has to be operated upon immediately," he said sharply. "He was hurt in the afternoon out on the end of the ranch; has been all day getting in; fainted half a dozen times, I guess. The arm has to come off at the elbow."

"Thank you," returned Virginia quietly, going to the table. "I'll take the case now, Dr. Patten."

"You?" Patten laughed, his eyes jeering. "You operate? Do you think that they want you to cut a skein of silk with a pair of scissors? Cut off a man's arm . . . how far would you go before you fainted?"

"That'll be about all, Patten," came Norton's voice sternly from the door. "This is Dr. Page's case. Clear out."

"Thank you, Mr. Norton," said Virginia quickly. She was already making an examination of the blood covered arm and hand, and did not look around. "And please clear the room, will you? Let Tony's wife stay, that is all. Eloisa."

The woman came forward, her eyes wide and frightened. Virginia smiled at her reassuringly.

"No muy malo," she said in the few Spanish words which she could summon for the occasion from those she had picked up from the desert people. "Muy bueno manana. And now get me some warm water . . . agua caliente. Mr. Norton, if you will open my instrument case . . . no; the other one. And then stand by to help with the anaesthetic if Patten hasn't already given him enough to keep him asleep all night!"

She gave her directions concisely and was obeyed. Norton put the last of the undesired onlookers out of the door, closed it after them, found another lamp and some candles, did all that he could think of to help and all that was asked of him. Eloisa, having brought the water, withdrew to a corner and kept her fascinated eyes upon Virginia's face and stubbornly away from her husband's.

Virginia, when she had completed a very thorough examination, turned toward Norton, her eyes blazing.

"Patten has no more right to an M.D. after his name than you have," she cried angrily. "Not so much, for he hasn't even any brains! Cut the man's arm off! Why, there is only a simple fracture above the wrist which won't cause a bit of trouble. The hand is another matter; but even it isn't half as badly mangled as it looks. . . . The second and third fingers are terribly crushed; they've got to come off. We might as well do it now, while he is already under the chloroform. . . . Tell Eloisa just how matters stand and then send her out."

Eloisa, already prepared for the greater operation, gasped her gratitude for the lesser and allowed herself to be gently thrust from the room. Then Norton came back to the table, his eyes wonderingly upon Virginia. He knew that she was capable; he had read that fact the first day when he had seen her hands. But it struck him as rather unusual that a girl, any girl no matter what her training, should take hold as she was doing.

And as she selected her instruments, laid them out upon a bit of sterilized gauze upon a chair, cleansed her hands and prepared to operate he began to feel a sense of utter confidence in her. Rapidly his own anger rose at the thought of the crime Patten would have perpetrated.

Tony Garcia, when in due time his consciousness came back to him bringing the attendant dizzy nausea in its wake, looked down at his side curiously, wondering how it would be to go without an arm. And when his Eloisa told him. . . .

"We are going to sell our cow and the goats to-morrow!" vowed Tony faintly. "And give her all the money!"

"Si, si, Tony," wept the wife.

Whereupon the small children, who were teaching the goats to pull a wagon, set up a wail of grief and rebellion.

It struck both Virginia and Norton as a shade odd that Patten should be still in Las Estrellas when they rode out of it long after midnight. They saw him standing in the doorway of the one still lighted building of the village as they galloped past. It was the Three Star saloon. Patten's horse was tied in front of it. Since Patten neither drank nor played at dice or cards here might have been matter to ponder on. But in neither mind was there place now for any interest other than that which again held them silent and constrained.

Las Estrellas lost behind them, they drew their horses down into a rocking trot, then to a slow walk. Virginia rode with her head up, her eyes upon the field of stars. Her face, as Norton kept close to her side, looked very white in the starlight. He would have given much to have seen her eyes when a little later he began to talk. And she was conscious of a kindred wish.

"Look yonder," she said. "The late moon is coming up. There will be a little more light then and. . . . And I want to look at you, Rod Norton, while we thresh it out."

The thin curved sliver of silver thrusting up over the edge of the world in the east, ghostly and pale, added little to the throbbing gleam of the stars; but the waiting for it had put Las Estrellas a mile behind them, had set them alone together out in the heart of the silences, had given them that last excuse to be had to set back an evil moment. Virginia, with a sigh, brought her eyes down from the glitter of the wide heavens and sought Norton's.

"I am afraid," she said listlessly, "that there is no way out for us, Rod Norton."

"There is a way!" he began quickly

"There is no way unless you do what I say. If you would only give me your word to take the stage to-morrow, to go to a competent surgeon, to submit to the operation. If you would only give me your word. . . ."

"I give you my word," he said sharply, "that that is just the thing which I will never do. Virginia, breathe deep, fill your lungs with the wonder of the night; realize what it means to live; think what it means to die! You say that I am not afraid of death; well, maybe not if it comes in a guise I have grown up to be familiar with. But to lie as I saw Tony Garcia lying just now, powerless, unconscious, without will or knowledge of what was coming to me, and to let a man cut into me . . . I'd rather die, I think, standing upon my two feet and fighting it out with a gun! You would go on and tell me that the chances would be highly in favor of my recovery; and yet you would admit that the danger would be grave."

"Then you are afraid, after all? That is it? That holds you back?" She found it hard to believe that he was telling her his true emotion.

"I am merely measuring the chances," he said steadily. "I am satisfied with life as I find it; I do not believe that there is anything wrong with me; I see at least the possibility of death and nothing to be gained by submitting to an operation."

"Then," she said again wearily, "there is no way out."

"But there is! My way, not the one you have thought of. You have stumbled upon a thing which you must forget; that is all. Give me the free swing to finish Jim Galloway, to complete certain other undertakings. Promise me that you will do this; in return I will promise you not to . . . ."

And here he hesitated.

"Not to commit another theft?" She set the matter squarely before him. "Can you promise that, Rod Norton? Could you keep the promise were it once made?"

"Yes."

"No! You could not. You don't understand or you won't understand. You would obey the impulse which would come just as certainly as the sun will rise and set again. So I can neither accept your promise . . . nor give you mine."

"You will tell what you have guessed?"

"Rather what I know! Even if you were my own brother. . . ."

"Or your lover?" he demanded, a challenge in his voice.

"Or my lover. For his sake if not for the sake of others."

For a little while he made no answer. Again there was absolute silence between him, a troubled silence filled with pain. Then suddenly he leaned close to her, threw out his hand for Persis's rein, jerked both horses back to a fretful standstill.

"Can't you see what you force me to do?" he demanded half angrily. "Do you picture what your denunciation would do for me? Do you think that I can let you make it?"

His face was so near hers that she could see it clearly in the pallid light. He could see hers and that it was lifted fearlessly.

"How will you stop me?" she asked quietly.

"I will finish Jim Galloway out of hand," he told her savagely. "It will no longer be the representative of the law against the lawbreaker; it will just be Norton and Galloway, both men! I will accomplish the one other matter I have planned. Both will require not over three or four days. During that time . . . I tell you, Virginia, I have grown into a free man, a man who does what he wants to do, who takes what he wants to take, who is not bound by flimsy shackles of other men's codes. During those three or four days I shall see that you do no talking!"

Once more, her voice quickened, she asked:

"How will you stop me?"

"We have come to a deadlock; argument does no good. Either I must yield to you or you to me. There is too much at stake to allow of a man being squeamish. I don't care much for the job, but by high Heaven I am of no mind to watch life run by through the bars of a penitentiary. After all action becomes simplified when a crisis comes; doesn't it? There is just one answer, just one way out. You will come with me, now. I will put you where you will have no opportunity to do any talking for the few days in which I shall finish what I have to do." His hand on Persis's rein drew the two horses still closer together. "Give me your promise, Virginia; or come with me!"

Her quick spurt of anger rose, flared, and dwindled away like a little flame extinguished by a splash of rain; the tears were stinging her eyes almost before the last word. For she felt that here was no Roderick Norton speaking, but rather a bit of bone pressing upon the delicate machinery which is a man's brain.

"Where would you take me?" she asked faintly.

"To the King's Palace," he answered bitterly. "Where we had one perfect, happy day, Virginia; where, I had hoped, we would have other perfect days. Oh, girl, can't you see," and his voice went thrilling through her, "can't you see what I have hoped, what I have dreamed. . . ."

"You might still hope," she told him steadily. "You might still dream."

"I will!" His eyes shone at her, his erect form outlined against the black of the earth and the gleam of the stars was eloquent of mastery. "There will come a time when you will see life as I see it. . . . And now, for the last time, will you give me your promise, Virginia? It is forced upon you; you will be blameless in giving it. Will you do so?"

She only shook her head, her lips trembling, not trusting her voice. . . . And then, in a sort of daze, she knew that they had turned off to the left, that no longer was San Juan ahead of them, that they were riding toward the gloomy bulwark of the mountains.

CHAPTER XX

FLUFF AND BLACK BILL

Fluff and Black Bill were quarrelling.

Elmer, while Norton and Virginia were on their way from San Juan to Las Estrellas, had dropped in at the hotel to see his sister. He found upon her office table the card which she always left for him; this merely informed him that she was "out on a case at Las Estrellas." Elmer had come for her purposing to suggest a call upon the Engles. For not yet had he summoned the hardihood to present himself alone at Florrie's home. Now, disgruntled, seeing plainly that Virginia would never get back in time, he went out on the veranda and took solace from the pipe to which he had grown fairly accustomed. To him came the girl of whom he was thinking. "Hello, Fluff," he said from the shadows.

"Hello, Black Bill," she greeted him. "Where's Virgie?"

"Gone," he informed her, waving his pipe. "On a case to Las Estrellas. I'm waiting for her. Did you want to see her?"

Florrie, coming down the veranda to him, giggled.

"No," she told him flippantly. "I'm looking for the Emperor of China. I never was so lonesome. . . ."

"So'm I," said Elmer. He pushed a chair forward with his foot. "Sit down and we'll wait for her. And I'll go in and bring out a couple of bottles of ginger ale or something."

"Will she be back real soon?" asked Florrie pretending to hesitate.

"Sure," he assured her positively.

"All right then." Florrie with a great rustling of skirts sat down. "But you must be nice to me, Black Bill."

"It's always you who starts it," he muttered at her. "I'd be friends if you would. What's the good of spatting like two kids, anyway?"

"We're really not kids any longer, are we?" she agreed demurely. "I feel terribly grown up sometimes, don't you?"

From which point they got along swimmingly for perhaps five minutes longer than it had ever been possible for them to talk together without "starting something." Elmer, very emphatic in his own mind concerning his matured status, yearned for her to understand it as he did. With such purpose clearly before him . . . and before her, too, for that matter, since Miss Florrie had a keen little comprehension of her own . . . he spoke largely of himself and his blossoming plans. He was a vaquero, to begin with; he had ridden fifty miles yesterday on range business; he was making money; he was putting part of that money away in Mr. Engle's bank. There was a little ranch on the rim of Engle's big holding which belonged to an old half-breed; Elmer meant to acquire it himself one of these days. And before so very long, too. Mr. Engle had been approached and was looking into it, might be persuaded to advance the couple of thousand dollars for the property, taking as security a mortgage until Elmer could have squared for it. Then Black Bill would begin stocking his place, a cow now, a horse, another cow, and so on.

He had launched himself valiantly into his tale. But at a certain point he began to swallow and catch at his words and smoke fast between sentences. He had located a dandy spot for a house . . . the jolliest little spring of cold water you ever saw . . . a knoll with big trees upon it.

"We'll make up a party with Virginia and Norton some day and ride out there," he said abruptly. "I . . . I'd like to have you see it, Fluff."

She was tremulously delighted. She sensed the nearest thing to an out-and-out proposal which had ever sung in her ears. She leaned forward eagerly, her hands clasped to keep them from trembling. She was sixteen, he eighteen . . . and she had his assurance of a moment ago that they were no longer just "kids." And then and there their so-long-delayed quarrel began. Just at the wrong time, after the time-honored fashion of quarrels. He was ready to twine the vine about the veranda posts of the house on the knoll where the spring and the big trees were, she was ready to plant the fig-tree. Then she had glimpsed something just too funny for anything in the idea of Elmer raising pigs . . . for he had gone on to that, sagely anticipating a high market another season . . . and she laughed at him and all unintentionally wounded his feelings. In a flash he was Black Bill again and on his mettle, ready with the quick retort stung from him; and she, parrying his thrust, was at once Fluff, the mercuric. The spat was on . . . they would call it a spat to-morrow if to-morrow were kind to them . . . and Elmer's ranch and house and cow, horse and pigs were laughed to scorn.

Florrie departed leaving her cruellest laughter to ring in his ears. This might have been a repetition of any one of a dozen episodes familiar to them both, but never, perhaps, had Elmer's ears burned so or Florrie's heart so disturbed her with its beating. For, she thought regretfully as she hurried out into the street, they had been getting along so nicely. . . .

She had no business out alone at this time of night and she knew it. So she hurried on, anxious to get home before her father, who was returning late from a visit to one of his ranches. Abreast of the Casa Blanca she slowed up, looking in curiously. Then, as again she was hastening on, she heard Jim Galloway's deep voice in a quiet "Good evening, Miss Florence."

"Good evening!" gasped Florrie aloud. And "Oh!" said Florrie under her breath. For Galloway's figure had separated itself from the shadows at the side of his open door and had come out into the street, while Galloway was saying in a matter-of-fact way: "I'll see you home."

She wanted to run and could not. She hung a moment balancing upon a high heel in indecision. Galloway stepped forward swiftly, coming to her side. "Oh, dear," the inner Florrie was saying. A glance over her shoulder showed her Black Bill standing out in front of Struve's hotel. Well, there were compensations.

She started to hurry on, and had Jim Galloway been less sure of himself, troubled with the diffidence of youth as was Elmer, he must have either given over his purpose or else fairly run to keep up with her. But being Jim Galloway, he laid a gentle but none the less restraining hand upon her arm.

"Please," he said quietly. "I want to talk with you. May I?"

Florrie's arm burned where he had touched her. She was all in a flutter, half frightened and the other half flattered. A shade more leisurely they walked on toward the cottonwoods. Here, in the shadows, Galloway stopped and Florrie, although beginning to tremble, stopped with him.

"Men have given me a black name here," he was saying as he faced her. "They've made me somewhat worse than I am. I feel that I have few friends, certainly very few of my own class. I like to think of you as a friend. May I?"

It was distinctly pleasant to have a big man like Galloway, a man whom for good or for bad the whole State knew, pleading with her. It gave a new sort of assurance to her theory that she was "grown up"; it added to her importance in her own eyes.

"Why, yes," said Florrie.

"I am going away," he continued gravely. "For just how long I don't know. A week, perhaps a month, maybe longer. It is a business matter of considerable importance, Florence. Nor is it entirely without danger. It will take me down below the border, and an American in Mexico right now takes his life entirely into his own hands. You know that, don't you?"

"Then why do you go?"

Galloway smiled down at her.

"If I held back every time a danger-signal was thrown out," he said lightly, "I wouldn't travel very far. Oh, I'll come back all right; a man may go through fire itself and return if he has the incentive which I have." His tone altered subtly. Florrie started.

"But before I go," went on Galloway, "I am going to tell you something which I think you know already. You do, don't you, Florence?"

She would not have been Florrie at all, but some very different, unromantic, and unimaginative creature, had she failed of comprehension. Jim Galloway was actually making love to her!

"What do you mean, Mr. Galloway?" she managed to stammer.

"I mean that what I am telling you is for your ears alone. I am placing a confidence in you, the greatest confidence a man can place in a girl. Or in a woman, Florence. I am trusting that what I say will remain just between you and me for the present. . . . When I come back I will be no longer just Jim Galloway of the Casa Blanca, but Galloway of one of the biggest grants in Mexico, with mile after mile of fertile lands, with a small army of servants, vaqueros, and retainers, a sort of ruler of my own State! It sounds like a fairy-tale, Florence, but it is the sober truth made possible by conditions below the border. My estates will run down to the blue water of the Gulf; I shall have my own fleet of ocean-going yachts; there is a port upon my own land. There will be a home overlooking the sea like a king's palace. Will you think of all that while I am gone? Will you think of me a little, too? Will you remember that my little kingdom is crying out for its queen? . . . No; I am not asking you to answer me now. I am just asking that you hold this as our secret until I come back. Until I come back for you! . . . I shall stand here until you reach your home," he broke off suddenly. "Good night, my dear."

"Good night," said Florence faintly, a little dazed by all that he had said to her. Then, running through the shadows to her home, she was thinking of the boy who had wished to propose to her and of the man who had done so; of Elmer's little home upon the knoll surrounded by a cow, a horse, and some pigs . . . and of a big house like a palace looking out to sea across the swaying masts of white-sailed, sea-going yachts!