"Which means, I infer, that you have need of me before I pass by the Socratic method," he suggested, still with that pale smile set in granite "I shall depend on you to let me know at what precise hour you would like to order an epitaph written for me. Say the word at your convenience, and within five minutes your bulletin concerning the late governor will have the merit of truth."

"Begad, excellency, I like your spirit. If it's my say-so, you will live to be a hundred. Come the cards are against you. Some other day they may fall more pat for you. But the jig's up now."

"I am very much of your opinion, sir," agreed Megales.

"Then why not make terms?"

"Such as—"

"Your life and your friends' lives against a graceful capitulation."

"Our lives as prisoners or as free men?"

"The utmost freedom compatible with the circumstances. Your friends may either leave or remain and accept the new order of things. I'm afraid it will be necessary for you and General Carlo to leave the state for your own safety. You have both many enemies."

"With our personal possessions?"

"Of course. Such property as you cannot well take may be left in the hands of an agent and disposed of later."

Megales eyed him narrowly. "Is it your opinion, on honor, that the general and I would reach the boundaries of the State without being assassinated?"

"I pledge you my honor and that of Juan Valdez that you will be safely escorted out of the country if you will consent to a disguise. It is only fair to him to say that he stands strong for your life."

"Then, sir, I accept your terms if you can make it plain to me that you are strong enough to take the city against General Carlo."

From his pocket O'Halloran drew a typewritten list and handed it to the governor, who glanced it over with interest.

"These army officers are all with you?"

"As soon as the word is given."

"You will pardon me if I ask for proof?"

"Certainly. Choose the name of any one of them you like and send for him. You are at liberty to ask him whether he is pledged to us."

The governor drew a pencil-mark through a name. O'Halloran clapped his hands and Rodrigo came into the room.

"Rodrigo, the governor desires you to carry a message to Colonel Onate. He is writing it now. You will give Colonel Onate my compliments and ask him to make as much haste as is convenient."

Megales signed and sealed the note he was writing and handed it to O'Halloran, who in turn passed it to Rodrigo.

"Colonel Onate should be here in fifteen minutes at the farthest. May I in the meantime offer you a glass of wine, Dictator O'Halloran?" At the Irishman's smile, the Mexican governor hastened to add, misunderstanding him purposely: "Perhaps I assume too much in taking the part of host here. May I ask whether you will be governor in person or by deputy, senor?"

"You do me too much honor, excellency. Neither in person nor by deputy, I fear. And, as for the glass of wine—with all my heart. Good liquor is always in order, whether for a funeral or a marriage."

"Or an abdication, you might add. I drink to a successful reign, Senor Dictator: Le roi est mort; vive le roi!"

The Irishman filled a second glass. "And I drink to Governor Megales, a brave man. May the cards fall better for him next time he plays."

The governor bowed ironically. "A brave man certainly, and you might add: 'Who loses his stake without striking one honest blow for it.'"

"We play with stacked cards, excellency. Who can forestall the treachery of trusted associates?"

"Sir, your apology for me is very generous, no less so than the terms you offer," returned Megales sardonically.

O'Halloran laughed. "Well, if you don't like my explanations I shall have to let you make your own. And, by the way, may I venture on a delicate personal matter, your excellency?"

"I can deny you nothing to-night, senor," answered Megales, mocking at himself.

"Young Valdez is in love with your daughter. I am sure that she is fond of him, but she is very loyal to you and flouts the lad. I was thinking, sir, that—"

The Spaniard's eye flashed, but his answer came suavely as he interrupted: "Don't you think you had better leave Senor Valdez and me to arrange our own family affairs? We could not think of troubling you to attend to them."

"He is a good lad and a brave."

Megales bowed. "Your recommendation goes a long way with me, senor, and, in truth, I have known him only a small matter of twenty years longer than you."

"Never a more loyal youngster in the land."

"You think so? A matter of definitions, one may suppose. Loyal to the authorized government of his country, or to the rebels who would illegally overthrow it?"

"Egad, you have me there, excellency. 'Tis a question of point of view, I'm thinking. But you'll never tell me the lad pretended one thing and did another. I'll never believe you like that milksop Chaves better."

"Must I choose either a fool or a knave?"

"I doubt it will be no choice of yours. Juan Valdez is an ill man to deny what he sets his heart on. If the lady is willing—"

"I shall give her to the knave and wash my hands of her. Since treason thrives she may at last come back to the palace as its mistress. Quien sabe?"

"Less likely things have happened. What news, Rodrigo?" This last to the messenger, who at that moment appeared at the door.

"Colonel Onate attends, senor."

"Show him in."

Onate was plainly puzzled at the summons to attend the governor, and mixed with his perplexity was a very evident anxiety. He glanced quickly at O'Halloran as he entered, as if asking for guidance, and then as questioningly at Megales. Had the Irishman played Judas and betrayed them all? Or was the coup already played with success?

"Colonel Onate, I have sent for you at the request of Governor Megales to set his mind at rest on a disturbing point. His health is failing and he considers the advisability of retiring from the active cares of state. I have assured him that you, among others, would, under such circumstances, be in a friendly relation to the next administration. Am I correct in so assuring him?"

Megales pierced him with his beady eyes. "In other words, Colonel Onate, are you one of the traitors involved in this rebellion?"

"I prefer the word patriot, senor," returned Onate, flushing.

"Indeed I have no doubt you do. I am answered," he exclaimed scornfully. "And what is the price of patriotism these days, colonel?"

"Sir!" The colonel laid his hand on his sword.

"I was merely curious to know what position you would hold under the new administration."

O'Halloran choked a laugh, for by chance the governor had hit the nail on the head. Onate was to be Secretary of State under Valdez, and this was the bait that had been dangled temptingly under his nose to induce a desertion of Megales.

"If you mean to reflect upon my honor I can assure you that my conscience is clear," answered Onate blackly.

"Indeed, colonel, I do not doubt it. I have always admired your conscience and its adaptability." The governor turned to O'Halloran. "I am satisfied, Senior Dictator. If you will permit me—"

He walked to his desk, unlocked a drawer, and drew forth a parchment, which he tossed across to the Irishman. "It is my commission as governor. Allow me to place it in your hands and put myself at the service of the new administration."

"If you will kindly write notes, I will send a messenger to General Carlo and another to Colonel Gabilonda requesting their attendance. I think affairs may be quickly arranged."

"You are irresistible, senor. I hasten to obey."

Megales sat down and wrote two notes, which he turned over to O'Halloran. The latter read them, saw them officially sealed, and dispatched them to their destinations.

When Gabilonda was announced, General Carlo followed almost at his heels. The latter glanced in surprise at O'Halloran.

"Where did you catch him, excellency?" he asked.

"I did not catch him. He has caught me, and, incidentally, you, general," answered the sardonic Megales.

"In short, general," laughed the big Irishman, "the game is up."

"But the army—You haven't surrendered without a fight?"

"That is precisely what I have done. Cast your eye over that paper, general, and then tell me of what use the army would be to us. Half the officers are with the enemy, among them the patriotic Colonel Onate, whom you see present. A resistance would be futile, and would only result in useless bloodshed."

"I don't believe it," returned Carlo bluntly.

"Seeing is believing, general," returned O'Halloran, and he gave a little nod to Onate.

The colonel left the room, and two or three minutes later a bell began to toll.

"What does that mean?" asked Carlo.

"The call to arms, general. It means that the old regime is at an end in Chihuahua. VIVA VALDEZ."

"Not without a struggle," cried the general, rushing out of the room.

O'Halloran laughed. "I'm afraid he will not be able to give the countersign to Garcia. In the meantime, excellency, pending his return, I would suggest that you notify Colonel Gabilonda to turn over the prison to us without resistance."

"You hear your new dictator, colonel," said Megales.

"Pardon me, your excellency, but a written order—"

"Would relieve you of responsibility. So it would. I write once more."

He was interrupted as he wrote by a great shout from the plaza. "VIVA VALDEZ!" came clearly across the night air, and presently another that stole the color from the cheek of Megales.

"Death to the tyrant! Death to Megales!" repeated the governor, after the shouts reached them.

"I fear, Senor Dictator, that your pledge to see me across the frontier will not avail against that mad-dog mob." He smiled, waving an airy hand toward the window.

The Irishman set his bulldog jaw. "I'll get you out safely or, begad! I'll go down fighting with you."

"I think we are likely to have interesting times, my dear dictator. Be sure I shall watch your doings with interest so long as your friends allow me to watch anything in this present world." The governor turned to his desk and continued the letter with a firm hand. "I think this should relieve you of responsibility, colonel."

By this time General Carlo had reentered the room, with a crestfallen face.

O'Halloran had been thinking rapidly. "Governor, I think the safest place for you and General Carlo, for a day or two, will be in the prison. I intend to put my friend O'Connor in charge of its defense, with a trustworthy command. There is no need of word reaching the mob as to where you are hidden. I confess the quarters will be narrows but—"

"No narrower than those we shall occupy very soon if we do not accept your suggestion," smiled Megales. "Buertos! Anything to escape the pressing attentions of your friends outside. I ask only one favor, the loan of a revolver, in order that we may disappoint the mad dogs if they overpower the guard of Senor O'Connor."

Hastily O'Halloran rapped out orders, gathered together a little force of five men, and prepared to start. Both Carlo and Megales he furnished with revolvers, that they might put an end to their lives in case the worst happened. But before they had started Juan Valdez and Carmencita Megales came running toward them.

"Where are you going? It is too late. The palace is surrounded!" cried the young man. "Look!" He swept an excited arm toward the window. "There are thousands and thousands of frenzied people calling for the lives of the governor and General Carlo."

Carlo shook like a leaf, but Megales only smiled at O'Halloran his wintry smile. "That is the trouble in keeping a mad dog, senor. One never knows when it may get out of leash and bite perhaps even the hand that feeds it."

Carmencita flung herself, sobbing, into the arms of her father and filled the palace with her screams. Megales handed her over promptly to her lover.

"To my private office," he ordered briskly. "Come, general, there is still a chance."

O'Halloran failed to see it, but he joined the little group that hurried to the private office. Megales dragged his desk from the corner where it set and touched a spring that opened a panel in the wall. Carlo, blanched with fear at the threats and curses that filled the night, sprang toward the passageway that appeared.

Megales plucked him back. "One moment, general. Ladies first. Carmencita, enter."

Carlo followed her, after him the governor, and lastly Gabilonda, tearing himself from a whispered conversation with O'Halloran. The panel swung closed again, and Valdez and O'Halloran lifted back the desk just as Garcia came running in to say that the mob would not be denied. Immediately O'Halloran threw open a French window and stepped out to the little railed porch upon which it opened. He had the chance of his life to make a speech, and that is the one thing that no Irishman can resist. He flung out from his revolver three shots in rapid succession to draw the attention of the mob to him. In this he succeeded beyond his hopes. The word ran like wildfire that the mad Irishman, O'Halloran, was about to deliver a message to them, and from all sides of the building they poured to hear it. He spoke in Mexican, rapidly, his great bull voice reaching to the utmost confines of the crowd.

"Fellow lovers of liberty, the hour has struck that we have worked and prayed for. The glorious redemption of our State has been accomplished by your patriotic hands. An hour ago the tyrants, Megales and Carlo, slipped out of the palace, mounted swift horses, and are galloping toward the frontier."

A roar of rage, such as a tiger disappointed of its kill might give, rose into the night. Such a terrible cry no man made of flesh and blood could hear directed at him and not tremble.

"But the pursuit is already on. Swift riders are in chase, with orders not to spare their horses so only they capture the fleeing despots. We expect confidently that before morning the tyrants will be in our hands. In the meantime, let us show ourselves worthy of the liberty we have won. Let us neither sack nor pillage, but show our great president in the City of Mexico that not ruffians but an outraged people have driven out the oppressors."

The huge Celt was swimming into his periods beautifully, but it was very apparent to him that the mob must have a vent for its stored excitement. An inspiration seized him.

"But one sacred duty calls to us from heaven, my fellow citizens. Already I see in your glorious faces that you behold the duty. Then forward, patriots! To the plaza, and let us tear down, let us destroy by fire, let us annihilate the statue of the dastard Megales which defaces our fair city. Citizens, to your patriotic duty!"

Another wild yell rang skyward, and at once the fringes of the crowd began to vanish plazaward, its centre began to heave, its flanks to stir. Three minutes later the grounds of the palace were again dark and empty. The Irishman's oratory had won the day.



CHAPTER 15. IN THE SECRET CHAMBER

The escaping party groped its way along the passage in the wall, down a rough, narrow flight of stone steps to a second tunnel, and along this underground way for several hundred yards. Since he was the only one familiar with the path they were traversing, the governor took the lead and guided the others. At a distance of perhaps an eighth of a mile from the palace the tunnel forked. Without hesitation, Megales kept to the right. A stone's throw beyond this point of divergence there began to be apparent a perceptible descent which terminated in a stone wall that blocked completely the way.

Megales reached up and put his weight on a rope suspended from the roof. Slowly the solid masonry swung on a pivot, leaving room on either side for a person to squeeze through. The governor found it a tight fit, as did also Gabilonda.

"I was more slender last time I passed through there. It has been several years since then," said the governor, giving his daughter a hand to assist her through.

They found themselves in a small chamber fitted up as a living room in a simple way. There were three plain chairs, a bed, a table, and a dresser, as well as a cooking stove.

"This must be close to the prison. We have been coming in that direction all the time. It is strange that it could be so near and I not know of it," said the warden, looking around curiously.

Megales smiled. "I am the only person alive that knew of the existence of this room or of the secret passage until half an hour ago. I had it built a few years since by Yaquis when I was warden of the prison. The other end, the one opening from the palace, I had finished after I became governor."

"But surely the men who built it know of its existence."

Again Megales smiled. "I thought you knew me better, Carlo. The Yaquis who built this were condemned raiders. I postponed their execution a few months while they were working on this. It was a convenience both to them and to me."

"And is also a convenience to me," smiled Carlo, who was beginning to recover from his terror.

"But I don't quite understand yet how we are to get out of here except by going back the way we came," said Gabilonda.

"Which for some of us might prove a dangerously unhealthy journey. True, colonel, and therefore one to be avoided." Megales stepped to the wall, spanned with his fingers a space from the floor above a joint in the masonry, and pressed against the concrete. Inch by inch the wall fell back and opened into a lower corridor of the prison, the very one indeed which led to the cell in which Bucky and his love were imprisoned. Cautiously the Spaniard's glance traveled down the passage to see it was empty before he opened the panel door more than enough to look through. Then he beckoned to Gabilonda. "Behold, doubting Thomas!"

The warden gasped. "And I never knew it, never had a suspicion of it."

"But this only brings us from one prison to another," objected the general. "We might be penned in here as well as at the castle."

"Even that contingency has been provided for. You noticed, perhaps, where the tunnel forked. The left branch runs down to the river-wash, and by ten minutes' digging with the tools lying there one can force an exit."

"Your excellency is certainly a wonder, and all this done without arousing the least suspicion of anybody," admired the warden.

"The wise man, my dear colonel, prepares for emergencies; the fool trusts to his luck," replied the governor dryly.

"Are we to stay here for the present, colonel?" broke in the governor's daughter. "And can you furnish accommodations for the rest of us if we stay all night, as I expect we must?"

"My dear senorita, I have accommodations and to spare. But the trouble is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest' man alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua's fairest daughter. But if it should get out that you are here—" Gabilonda stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at the prospect.

"We shall have to stay here, or, at least, in the lower tier of cells. I'm sorry, Carmencita, but there is no other course compatible with safety," decided Megales promptly.

The warden's face cleared. "That is really not a point for me to decide, governor. This young American, O'Connor, is now in charge of the prison. I must release him at once, and shall then bring him here to confer with you as to means of safety."

Bucky's eyes opened wide when Gabilonda and Megales came alone and without a lantern to his cell. In the darkness it was impossible to recognize them, but once within the closed cell the warden produced a dark lantern from under his coat.

"Circumstances have arisen that make the utmost vigilance necessary," explained the warden. "I may begin my explanations by congratulating you and your young friend. Let me offer a thousand felicitations. Neither of you are any longer prisoners."

If he expected either of them to fall on his neck and weep tears of gratitude at his pompous announcement, the colonel was disappointed. From the darkness where the ranger's little partner sat on the bed came a deep sigh of relief, but O'Connor did not wink an eyelash.

"I may conclude, then, that Mike O'Halloran has been getting in his work?" was his cool reply.

"Exactly, senor. He is the man on horseback and I travel afoot," smiled Megales.

Bucky looked him over coolly from head to foot. "Still I can't quite understand why your ex-excellency does me the honor of a personal visit."

"Because, senor, in the course of human events Providence has seen fit to reverse our positions. I am now your prisoner and you my jailer," explained Megales, and urbanely added a whimsical question. "Shall you have me hanged at dawn?"

"It would be a pleasure, and, I reckon, a duty too. But I can't promise till I've seen Mike. Do some more explaining, colonel. I want to know all about the round-up O'Halloran is boss of. Did he make a right good gather?"

The subtleties of American humor baffled the little Mexican, but he appreciated the main drift of the ranger's query, and narrated with much gesticulation the story of the coup that O'Halloran had pulled off in capturing the government leaders.

"It was an exceedingly neat piece of strategy," its victim admitted. "I would give a good deal to have the privilege of hanging your red-headed friend, but since that is denied me, I must be grateful he does not take a fancy to hang me."

"In case he doesn't, your excellency," was Bucky's addendum.

"I understand he has decided to deport me," retorted Megales lightly. "It is perhaps better politics, on the whole, better even than a knife in the back."

"Unless rumor is a lying jade, you should be a good judge of that, governor," said the American, eyeing him sternly.

Megales shrugged. "One of the penalties of fame is that one gets credit for much he does not deserve. There was your immortal General Lincoln, a wit so famous in your country that every good story is fathered upon him, I understand. So with your humble servant. Let a man accomplish his vendetta upon the body of an enemy, and behold! the world cries: 'A victim of Megales.'"

"Still, if you deserve your reputation as much as our immortal General Lincoln deserves his, the world may be pardoned for an occasional error." O'Connor turned to the warden. "What does he mean by saying that he is my prisoner? Have you a message for me from O'Halloran, colonel?"

"It is his desire, senor, that, pending the present uncertain state of public opinion, you accept the command of the prison and hold safe all persons detained here, including his excellency and General Carlo. He desired me to assure you that as soon as is possible he will arrive to confer with you in person."

"Good enough, and are you a prisoner, too, colonel?"

"I did not so understand Senor O'Halloran."

"If you're not you have to earn your grub and lodgings. I'll appoint you my deputy, colonel. And, first off, my orders are to lock up his excellency and General Carlo in this cell till morning."

"The cell, Senor O'Connor, is damp and badly ventilated," protested Gabilonda.

"I know that a heap better than you do, colonel," said Bucky dryly. "But if it was good enough for me and my pardner, here, I reckon it's good enough for them. Anyhow, we'll let them try it, won't we, Frank."

"If you think best, Bucky."

"You bet I do."

"And what about the governor's daughter?" asked Gabilonda.

"You don't say! Is she a guest of this tavern?"

The colonel explained how they had reached the prison and the circumstances that had led to their hurried flight, while the ranger whistled the air of a cowboy song, his mind busy with this new phase of the case.

"She's one of these here Spanish blue-blooded senoritas used to guitar serenades under her window. Now, what would you do with her in a jail, Bucky?" he asked himself, in humorous dismay; but even as he reflected on it his roving eye fell on his friend. "The very thing. I'll take Curly Haid in to her and let them fall in love with each other. You're liable to be some busy, Bucky, and shy on leisure to entertain a lady, let alone two."

And so he arranged it. Leaving the former governor and General Carlo in the cell just vacated by them, Frances and he accompanied Gabilonda to the secret room behind the corridor wall.

All three parties to the introduction that followed acknowledged secretly to a surprise. Miss Carmencita had expected the friend of big, rough, homely O'Halloran to resemble him in kind, at least. Instead, she looked on a bronzed young Apollo of the saddle with something of that same lithe grace she knew and loved in Juan Valdez. And the shy boy beside him—why, the darling was sweet enough to kiss. The big, brown, helpless eyes, the blushing, soft cheeks, the crop of thick, light curls were details of an extraordinarily taking picture. Really, if these two were fair specimens, Americans were not so bad, after all. Which conclusion Juan Valdez's fondness for that race may have helped in part to form.

But if the young Spanish girl found a little current of pleasure in her surprise, Bucky and his friend were aware of the same sensation. All the charm of her race seemed summed up in Carmencita Megales. She was of blue blood, every feature and motion told that. The fine, easy set of her head, the fire in the dark, heavy-lashed eyes, the sweep of dusky chin and cheek and throat certified the same story. She had, too, that coquettish hint of uncertainty, that charm of mystery so fatal in its lure to questing man. Even physically the contradiction of sex attracted. Slender and lissom as a fawn, she was yet a creature of exquisitely rounded curves. Were her eyes brown or black or—in the sunlight—touched with a gleam of copper? There was always uncertainty. But much more was there fire, a quality that seemed to flash out from her inner self. She was a child of whims, a victim of her moods. Yet in her, too, was a passionate loyalty that made fickleness impossible. She knew how to love and how to hate, and, despite her impulses, was capable of surrender complete and irrevocable.

All of this Bucky did not read in that first moment of meeting, but the shrewd judgment behind the level blue eyes came to an appraisal roughly just. Before she had spoken three sentences he knew she had all her sex's reputed capacity for injustice as well as its characteristic flashes of generosity.

"Are you one of the men who have rebelled against my father and attempted to murder him?" she flashed.

"I'm the man he condemned to be hanged tomorrow morning at dawn for helping Juan Valdez take the guns," retorted Bucky, with a laugh.

"You are his enemy, and, therefore, mine."

"I'm a friend of Michael O'Halloran, who stood between him and the mob that wanted to kill him."

"Who first plotted against him and seduced his officers to betray him," she quickly replied.

"I reckon, ma'am, we better agree to disagree on politics," said Bucky good-naturedly. "We're sure liable to see things different from each other. Castile and Arizona don't look at things with the same eyes."

She looked at him just then with very beautiful and scornful ones, at any rate. "I should hope not."

"You see, we're living in the twentieth century up in the sunburned State," said Bucky, with smiling aplomb.

"Indeed! And we poor Chihuahuans?"

"When I see the ladies I think you're ce'tainly in the golden age, but when I break into your politics, I'm some reminded of that Richard Third fellow in the Shakespeare play."

"Referring, I presume, to my father?" she demanded haughtily.

"In a general way, but eliminating the most objectionable points of the king fellow."

"You're very kind." She interrupted her scorn to ask him where he meant her to sleep.

He glanced over the room. "This might do right here, if we had that bed aired."

"Do you expect to put me in irons?"

"Not right away. Colonel, I'll ask you to go to the office and notify me as soon as Senor O'Halloran arrives." He waited till the colonel had gone before adding: "I'm going to leave this boy with you, senorita, for a while. He'll explain some things to you that I can't. In about an hour I'll be back, perhaps sooner. So long, Curly. Tell the lady your secret." And with that Bucky was out of the room.

"Your secret, child! What does he mean?"

The flame of color that swept into the cheeks of Frances, the appeal in the shamed eyes, held Carmencita's surprised gaze. Then coolly it traveled over the girl and came back to her burning face.

"So that's it, is it?"

But the scorn in her voice was too much for Frances. She had been judged and condemned in that cool stare, and all the woman in her protested at its injustice.

"No, no, no!" she cried, running forward and catching at the other's hand. "I'm not that. You don't understand."

Coldly Carmencita disengaged her hand and wiped it with her kerchief. "I understand enough. Please do not touch me."

"May I not tell you my story?"

"I'll not trouble you. It does not interest me."

"But you will listen?" implored the other.

"I must ask to be excused."

"Then you are a heartless, cruel woman," flamed Frances. "I'm good—as good as you are." The color patched her cheek and ebbed again. "I wouldn't treat a dog as you do me. Oh, cruel, cruel!"

The surprising extravagance of her protest, the despair that rang in the fresh young voice, caught the interest of the Mexican girl. Surely such a heart-broken cry did not consist with guilt. But the facts—when a young and pretty girl masquerades through the country in the garb of a boy with a handsome young man, not much room for doubt is left.

Frances was quick to see that the issue was reopened. "Oh, senorita, it isn't as you think. Do I look like—" She broke off to cover with her hands a face in which the pink and white warred with alternate success. "I ought not to have come. I ought never to have come. I see that now. But I didn't think he would know. You see, I had always passed as a boy when I wanted to."

"A remarkably pretty one, child," said Miss Carmencita, a smile dimpling her cheeks. "But how do you mean that you had passed as a boy?"

Frances explained, giving a rapid sketch of her life with the Hardmans during which she had appeared every night on the stage as a boy without the deception being suspected. She had cultivated the tricks and ways of boys, had tried to dress to carry out the impression, and had always succeeded until she had made the mistake of putting on a gypsy girl's dress a couple of days before.

Carmencita heard her out, but not as a judge. Very early in the story her doubts fled and she succumbed to the mothering instinct in her. She took the American girl in her arms and laughed and cried with her; for her imagination seized on the romance of the story and delighted in its fresh unconventionality. Since she had been born Carmencita's life had been ordered for her with precision by the laws of caste. Her environment wrapped her in so that she must follow a set and beaten path. It was, to be sure, a flower-strewn one, but often she impotently rebelled against its very orderliness. And here in her arms was a victim of that adventurous romance she had always longed so passionately to know. Was it wonder she found it in her heart to both love and envy the subject of it?

"And this young cavalier—the Senor Bucky, is it you call him?—surely you love him, my dear."

"Oh, senorita!" The blushing face was buried on her new friend's shoulder. "You don't know how good he is."

"Then tell me," smiled the other. "And call me Carmencita."

"He is so brave, and patient, and good. I know there was never a man like him."

Miss Carmencita thought of one and demurred silently. "I'm sure this paragon of lovers is at least part of what you say. Does he love you? But I am sure he couldn't help it."

"Sometimes I think he does, but once—" Frances broke off to ask, in a pink flame: "How does a lover act?"

Miss Carmencita's laughter rippled up. "Gracious me, have you never had one before."

"Never."

"Well, he should make verses to you and pretty speeches. He should sing serenades about undying love under your window. Bonbons should bombard you, roses make your rooms a bower. He should be ardent as Romeo, devoted as a knight of old. These be the signs of a true love," she laughed.

Frances' face fell. If these were the tokens of true love, her ranger was none. For not one of the symptoms could fairly be said to fit him. Perhaps, after all, she had given him what he did not want.

"Must he do all that? Must he make verses?" she asked blankly, not being able to associate Bucky with poetasting.

"He must," teased her tormentor, running a saucy eye over her boyish garb. "And why not with so fair a Rosalind for a subject?" She broke off to quote in her pretty, uncertain English, acquired at a convent in the United States, where she had attended school:

"From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind.

All the pictures, fairest lin'd, Are but black to Rosalind. Let no face be kept in mind But the fair of Rosalind."

"So your Shakespeare has it, does he not?" she asked, reverting again to the Spanish language, in which they had been talking. But swift on the heels of her raillery came repentance. She caught the dispirited girl to her embrace laughingly. "No, no, child! Nonsense ripples from my tongue. These follies are but for a carpet lover. You shall tell me more of your Senor Bucky and I shall make no sport of it."

When Bucky returned at the expiration of the time he had set himself, he found them with their arms twined about each other's waists, whispering the confidences that every girl on the threshold of womanhood has to tell her dearest friend.

"I reckon you like my pardner better than you do me," smiled Bucky to Miss Carmencita.

"A great deal better, sir, but then I know him better."

Bucky's eyes rested for a moment almost tenderly on Frances. "I reckon he is better worth knowing," he said.

"Indeed! And you so brave, and patient, and good?" she mocked.

"Oh! Am I all that?" asked Bucky easily.

"So I have been given to understand."

Out of the corner of his eye O'Connor caught the embarrassed, reproachful look that Frances gave her audacious friend, and he found it easy to fit quotation marks round the admirable qualities that had just been ascribed to him. He guessed himself blushing a deux with his little friend, and also divined Miss Carmencita's roguish merriment at their confusion.

"I AM all those things you mentioned and a heap more you forgot to say," claimed the ranger boldly, to relieve the situation. "Only I didn't know for sure that folks had found it out. My mind's a heap easier to know I'm being appreciated proper at last."

Under her long, dark lashes Miss Carmencita looked at him in gentle derision. "I'm of opinion, sir, that you get all the appreciation that is good for you."

Bucky carried the war into the enemy's country. "Which same, I expect, might be said of Chihuahua's most beautiful belle. And, talking of Senor Valdez reminds me that I owe a duty to his father, who is confined here. I'll be saying good night ladies."

"It's high time," agreed Miss Megales. "Talking of Senor Valdez, indeed!"

"Good night, Curly said."

"Good night, Bucky."

To which, in mocking travesty, added, in English, Miss Carmencita, who seemed to have an acute attack of Shakespeare:

"Good night, good night; parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till It be morrow."



CHAPTER 16. JUAN VALDEZ SCORES

The first thing Bucky did after leaving the two young women was to go down in person with one of the guards to the cell of David Henderson. The occupant of the cell was asleep, but he woke up when the two men entered.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

"Webb Mackenzie's man come to release you," answered Bucky.

The prisoner fell to trembling like an aspen. "God, man, do you mean it?" he begged. "You wouldn't deceive an old man who has lived fifteen years in hell?"

"It's true, friend, every word of it. You'll live to ride the range again and count your cattle on the free hillside. Come with me up to the office and we'll talk more of it."

"But may I? Will they let me?" trembled Henderson, fearful lest his cup of joy be dashed from him. "I'm not dreaming, am I? I'll not wake the way I often do and find that it is all a dream, will I?" He caught at the lapel of O'Connor's coat and searched his face.

"No, your dreams are true at last, Dave Henderson. Come, old friend, take a drink of this to steady you. It's all coming out right now."

Tears streamed down the face of the man rescued from a living grave. He dashed them away impatiently with a shaking hand. "I used to be as game as other men, young man, and now you see what a weakling I am. Don't judge me too hard. Happiness is a harder thing to stand than pain or grief. They've tried to break my spirit many a time and they couldn't, but you've done it now with a word."

"You'll be all right as soon as you are able to realize it. I don't wonder the shock unnerves you. Have you anything you want to take out of here with you before you leave forever?"

Pathetically the prisoner looked round on his few belongings. Some of them had become endeared to him by years of use and association, but they had served their time. "No, I want to forget it all. I came in with nothing. I'll take out nothing. I want to blot it all out like a hideous nightmare."

Bucky ordered Colonel Gabilonda to bring up from his cell General Valdez and the other arrested suspects. They reached the office at the same time as Mike O'Halloran, who greeted them with the good news that the day was won. The Megales faction had melted into mist, and all over the city a happy people was shouting for Valdez.

"I congratulate you, general. We have just telegraphed the news over the State that Megales has resigned and fled. There can be no doubt that you will be elected governor to-morrow and that the people's party will win the day with an unprecedented vote. Glory be, Chihuahua is at last free from the heel of tyranny. Viva Valdez! Viva Chihuahua libra!"

Bucky at once introduced to General Valdez the American prisoner who had suffered so long and unjustly. He recited the story of the abduction of the child, of Henderson's pursuit, of the killing of the trooper, and of the circumstantial evidence that implicated the Texan and upon which he was convicted. He then drew from his pocket a signed and attested copy of the confession of the knife thrower and handed it to the general.

Valdez looked it over, asked an incisive question or two of Bucky, heard from Henderson his story, and, after a few moments' discussion of the matter with O'Halloran, promised a free pardon as his first official act after being elected to the governorship, in case he should be chosen.

The vote next day amply justified the hopes of O'Halloran and his friends. The whole ticket, sent out by telegraph and messengers throughout the State, was triumphantly elected by large majorities. Only in one or two out-of-the-way places, where the news of the fall of Megales did not arrive in time to affect the voting, did the old government party make any showing worthy of consideration.

It was after Valdez's election had been made certain by the returns that O'Halloran and Juan Valdez posted to the prison and visited father and daughter. They separated in the lower corridor, one to visit the defeated governor, the other Miss Carmencita. The problem before Juan Valdez was to induce that young woman to remain in Chihuahua instead of accompanying her father in his flight. He was a good fighter, and he meant to win, if it were a possibility. She had tacitly admitted that she loved him, but he knew that she felt that loyalty demanded she stay by her father in his flight.

When O'Halloran was admitted to the cell where the governor and the general were staying he laughed aloud.

"Faith, gentlemen, is this the best accommodation Governor Valdez can furnish his guests? We must petition him to improve the sanitation of his hotel."

"We are being told, one may suppose, that General Valdez is the newly elected governor?"

"Right, your excellency, elected by a large majority to succeed the late Governor Megales."

"Late!" The former governor lifted his eyebrows. "Am I also being told that necessity demands the posting of the suicide bulletin, after all?"

"Not at all. Sure, I gave you me word, excellency. And that is one of the reasons why I am here. We have arranged to run a special down the line to-night, in order to avoid the risk of the news leaking out that you are still here. Can you make your arrangements to take that train, or will it hurry your packing too much?"

Megales laughed. "I have nothing to take with me except my daughter. The rest of my possessions may be forwarded later."

"Oh, your daughter! Well, that's pat, too. What about the lad, Valdez?"

"Are you his representative, senor?"

"Oh, he can talk for himself." O'Halloran grinned. "He's doing it right now, by the same token. Shall we interrupt a tete-a-tete and go pay our compliments to Miss Carmencita? You will want to find out whether she goes with you or stays here."

"Assuredly. Anything to escape this cave."

Miss Carmencita was at that moment reiterating her everlasting determination to go wherever her father went. "If you think, sir, that your faithlessness to him is a recommendation of your promised faithfulness to me, I can only wish you more light on the feelings of a daughter," she was informing Valdez, when her father slipped through the panel door and stood before her.

"Brava, senorita!" he applauded, with subtle irony, clapping his hands. "Brava, brava!"

That young woman swam blushingly toward him and let her face disappear in an embrace.

"You see, one can't have everything, Senor Valdez," continued Megales lightly. "For me, I cannot have both Chihuahua and my life; you, it seems, cannot have both your successful revolution and my daughter."

"Your excellency, she loves me. Of that I am assured. It rests with you to say whether her life will be spoiled or not. You know what I can offer her in addition to a heart full of devotion. It is enough. Shall she be sacrificed to her loyalty to you?" the young man demanded, with all the ardor of his warm-blooded race.

"It is no sacrifice to love and obey my father," came a low murmur from the former governor's shoulder.

"Since the world began it has been the law of life that the young should leave their parents for a home of their own," Juan protested.

"So the Scripture says," agreed Megales sardonically. "It further counsels to love one's enemies, but, I think, omits mention of the enemies of one's father."

"Sir, I am not your enemy. Political exigencies have thrown us into different camps, but we are not so small as to let such incidentals come between us as a vital objection in such a matter."

"You argue like a lawyer," smiled the governor. "You forget that I am neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people that needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am not to my only daughter."

"Then you consent, your excellency?" cried Valdez joyously.

"I neither consent nor refuse. You must go to a more final authority than mine for an answer, young man."

"But you are willing she should follow where her heart leads?"

"But certainly."

"Then she is mine," cried Valdez.

"I am not," replied the girl indignantly over her shoulder.

Megales turned her till her unconsenting eyes met his. "Do you want to marry this young man, Carmencita?"

"I never told him anything of the sort," she flamed.

"I didn't quite ask what you had told him. The question is whether you love him."

"But no; I love you," she blushed.

"I hope so," smiled her father. "But do you love him? An honest answer, if you please."

"Could I love a rebel?"

"No Yankee answers, muchacha. Do you love Juan Valdez?"

It was Valdez that broke triumphantly the moment's silence that followed. "She does. She does. I claim the consent of silence."

But victory spoke too prematurely in his voice. Cried the proud Spanish girl passionately: "I hate him!"

Megales understood the quality of her hate, and beckoned to his future son-in-law. "I have some arrangements to make for our journey to-night. Would it distress you, senor, if I were to leave you for a while?"

He slipped out and left them alone.

"Well?" asked O'Halloran, who had remained in the corridor.

"I think, Senor Dictator, I shall have to make the trip with only General Carlo for a companion," answered the Spaniard.

The Irishman swung his hat. "Hip, hip, hurrah! You're a gentleman I could find it in me heart to both love and hate, governor."

"And you're a gentleman," returned the governor, with a bow, "I could find it in my heart to hang high as Haman without love or hate."

Michael linked his arm in that of his excellency.

"Sure, you're a broth of a lad, Senor Megales," he said irreverently, in good, broad Irish brogue. "Here, me bye, where are you hurrying?" he added, catching at the sleeve of Frances Mackenzie, who was slipping quietly past.

"Please, Mr. O'Halloran, I've been up to the office after water. I'm taking it to Senorita Carmencita."

"She doesn't want water just now. You go back to the office, son, and stay there thirty minutes. Then you take her that water," ordered O'Halloran.

"But she wanted it as soon as I could get it, sir."

"Forget it, kid, just as she has. Water! Why, she's drinking nectar of the gods. Just you do as I tell ye."

Frances was puzzled, but she obeyed, even though she could not understand his meaning. She understood better when she slid back the panel at the expiration of the allotted time and caught a glimpse of Carmencita Megales in the arms of Juan Valdez.



CHAPTER 17. HIDDEN VALLEY

Across the desert into the hills, where the sun was setting in a great splash of crimson in the saddle between two distant peaks, a bunch of cows trailed heavily. Their tongues hung out and they panted for water, stretching their necks piteously to low now and again. For the heat of an Arizona summer was on the baked land and in the air that palpitated above it.

But the end of the journey was at hand and the cowpuncher in charge of the drive relaxed in the saddle after the easy fashion of the vaquero when he is under no tension. He did not any longer cast swift, anxious glances behind him to make sure no pursuit was in sight. For he had reached safety. He knew the 'Open sesame' to that rock wall which rose sheer in front of him. Straight for it he and his companion took their gather, swinging the cattle adroitly round a great slab which concealed a gateway to the secret canon. Half a mile up this defile lay what was called Hidden Valley, an inaccessible retreat known only to those who frequented it for nefarious purposes.

It was as the man in charge circled round to head the lead cows in that a faint voice carried to him. He stopped, listening. It came again, a dry, parched call for help that had no hope in it. He wheeled his pony as on a half dollar, and two minutes later caught sight of an exhausted figure leaning against a cottonwood. He needed no second guess to surmise that she was lost and had been wandering over the sandy desert through the hot day. With a shout, he loped toward her, and had his water bottle at her lips before she had recovered from her glad surprise at sight of him.

"You'll feel better now," he soothed. "How long you been lost, ma'am?"

"Since ten this morning. I came with my aunt to gather poppies, and somehow I got separated from her and the rig. These hills look so alike. I must have got turned round and mistaken one for another."

"You have to be awful careful here. Some one ought to have told you," he said indignantly.

"Oh, they told me, but of course I knew best," she replied, with quick scorn of her own self-sufficiency.

"Well, it's all right now," the cowpuncher told her cheerfully. He would not for a thousand dollars have told her how near it had come to being all wrong, how her life had probably depended upon that faint wafted call of hers.

He put her on his horse and led it forward to the spot where the cattle waited at the gateway. Not until they came full upon them did he remember that it was dangerous for strange young women to see him with those cattle and at the gateway to the Hidden canon.

"They are my uncle's cattle. I could tell the brand anywhere. Are you one of his riders? Are we close to the Rocking Chair Ranch?" she cried.

He flung a quick glance at her. "Not very close. Are you from the Rocking Chair?"

"Yes. I'm Mr. Mackenzie's niece."

"Major Mackenzie's daughter?" demanded the man quickly.

"Yes." She said it with a touch of annoyance, for he looked at her as a man does who has heard of her before. She knew that the story had been bruited far and wide of how she had passed through the hands of the train robbers carrying thirty thousand dollars on her person. She had no doubt that it was in this connection her rescuer had heard of her.

He drew off to one side and called his companion to him.

"Hardman, you ride up to the ranch and tell Leroy I've just found Miss Mackenzie wandering around on the desert, lost. Ask him whether I'm to bring her up. She's played out and can't travel far, tell him."

The showman rode on his errand and the other returned to Helen.

"You better light, ma'am. We'll have to wait here a few minutes," he explained.

He helped her dismount. She did not understand why it was necessary to wait, but that was his business and not hers. Her roving eyes fell upon the cattle again.

"They ARE my uncle's, aren't they?"

"They were," he corrected. "Cattle change hands a good deal in this country," he added dryly.

"Then you're not one of his riders?" Her stark eyes passed over him swiftly.

"No, ma'am."

"Are we far from the Rocking Chair?"

"A right smart distance. You've been traveling, you see, for eight or nine hours."

It occurred to her that there was something elusive, something not quite frank, about the replies of this young man. Her glance raked him again and swept up the details of his person. One of them that impressed itself upon her mind was the absence of a finger on his right hand. Another was that he was a walking arsenal. This startled her, though she was not yet afraid. She relapsed into silence, to which he seemed willing to consent. Once and again her glance swept him. He looked a tough, weather-beaten Westerner, certainly not a man whom a woman need be afraid to meet alone on the plains, but the oftener she looked the more certain she became that he was not a casual puncher busy at the legitimate work of his craft.

"Do you—live near here?" she asked presently.

"I live under my hat, ma'am," he told her.

"Sometimes near here, sometimes not so near."

This told her exactly nothing.

"How far did you say it was to the Rocking Chair?"

"I didn't say."

At the sound of a horses footfall she turned, and she saw that whereas they had been two, now they were three. The newcomer was a slender, graceful man, dark and lithe, with quick, piercing eyes, set deep in the most reckless, sardonic face she had ever seen.

The man bowed, with a sweep of his hat almost derisive. "Miss Mackenzie, I believe."

She met him with level eyes that confessed no fear.

"Who are you, sir?"

"They call me Wolf Leroy."

Her heart sank. "You and he are the men that held up the Limited.''

"If we are, you are the young lady that beat us out of thirty thousand dollars. We'll collect now," he told her, with a silky smile and a glitter of white, even teeth.

"What do you mean? Do you think I carry money about with me?"

"I didn't say that. We'll put it up to your father."

"My father?"

"He'll have to raise thirty thousand dollars to redeem his daughter." He let his bold eyes show their admiration. "And she's worth every cent of it."

"Do you mean—" She read the flash of triumph in his ribald eyes and broke off. There was no need to ask him what he meant.

"That's what I mean exactly, ma'am. You're welcome to the hospitality of Hidden Valley. What's ours is yours. You're welcome to stay as long as you like, but I reckon YOU'RE NOT WELCOME TO GO WHENEVER YOU WANT TO—not till we get that thirty thousand."

"You talk as if he were a millionaire," she told him scornfully.

"The major's got friends that are. If it's a showdown he'll dig the dough up. I ain't a bit worried about that. His brother, Webb, will come through."

"Why should he?" She stood as straight and unbending as a young pine, courage regnant in the very poise of the fine head. "You daren't harm a hair of my head, and he knows it. For your life, you daren't."

His eyes glittered. Wolf Leroy was never a safe man to fling a challenge at. "Don't you be too sure of that, my dear. There ain't one thing on this green earth I daren't do if I set my mind to it. And your friends know it."

The other man broke in, easy and unmoved. "Hold yore hawses, cap. We got no call to be threatening this young lady. We keep her for a ransom because that's business. But she's as safe here as she would be at the Rocking Chair. She's got York Neil's word for that."

The Wolf snarled. "The word of a miscreant. That'll comfort her a heap. And York Neil's word don't always go up here."

The cowpuncher's steady eyes met him. "It'll go this time."

The girl gave her champion a quiet little nod and a low "Thank you." It was not much, but enough. For on the frontier "white men" do not war on women. Her instinct gave just the right manner of treating his help. It assumed that since he was what he was he could do no less. Moreover, it had the unexpected effect of spurring the Wolf's vanity, or something better than his vanity. She could see the battle in his face, and the passing of its evil, sinister expression.

"Beg your pardon, Miss Mackenzie. York's right. I'll add my word to his about your safety. I'm a wolf, they'll tell you. But when I give my word I keep it."

They turned and followed through the gateway the cattle which Hardman and another rider were driving up the canon. Presently the walls fell back, the gulch opened to a saucer-shaped valley in which nestled a little ranch.

Leroy indicated it with a wave of his hand. "Welcome to Hidden Valley, Miss Mackenzie," he said cynically.

"Afraid I'm likely to wear my welcome out if you keep me here until my father raises thirty thousand dollars," she said lightly.

"Don't you worry any about that. We need the refining influences of ladies' society here. I can see York's a heap improved already. Just to teach us manners you're worth your board and keep." Then hardily, with a sweeping gesture toward the weary cattle: "Besides, your uncle has sent up a contribution to help keep you while you visit with us."

York laughed. "He sent it, but he didn't know he was sending it."

Leroy surrendered his room to Miss Mackenzie and put at her service the old Mexican woman who cooked for him. She was a silent, taciturn creature, as wrinkled as leather parchment and about as handsome, but Alice found safety in the very knowledge of the presence of another woman in the valley. She was among robbers and cutthroats, but old Juanita lent at least a touch of domesticity to a situation that would otherwise have been impossible. The girl was very uneasy in her mind. A cold dread filled her heart, a fear that was a good deal less than panic-terror, however. For she trusted the man Neil even as she distrusted his captain. Miscreant he had let himself be called, and doubtless was, but she knew no harm could befall her from his companions while he was alive to prevent it. A reassurance of this came to her that evening in the fragment of a conversation she overheard. They were passing her window which she had raised on account of the heat when the low voices of two men came to her.

"I tell you I'm not going, Leroy. Send Hardman," one said.

"Are you running this outfit, or am I, Neil?"

"You are. But I gave her my word. That's all there's to it."

Alice was aware that they had stopped and were facing each other tensely.

"Go slow, York. I gave her my word, too. Do you think I'm allowing to break it while you're away?"

"No, I don't. Look here, Phil. I'm not looking for trouble. You're major-domo of this outfit What you say goes—except about this girl. I'm a white man, if I'm a scoundrel."

"And I'm not?"

"I tell you I'm not sayin' that," the other answered doggedly.

"You're hinting it awful loud. I stand for it this time, York, but never again. You butt in once more and you better reach for your hardware simultaneous. Stick a pin in that."

They had moved on again, and she did not hear Neil's answer. Nevertheless, she was comforted to know she had one friend among these desperate outlaws, and that comfort gave her at least an hour or two of broken, nappy sleep.

In the morning when she had dressed she found her room door unlocked, and she stepped outside into the sunshine. York Neil was sitting on the porch at work on a broken spur strap. Looking up, he nodded a casual good morning. But she knew why he was there, and gratitude welled up in her heart. Not a young woman who gave way to every impulse, she yielded to one now, and shook hands with him. Their eyes met for a moment and he knew she was thanking him.

An eye derisive witnessed the handshake. "An alliance against the teeth of the wolf, I'll bet. Good mo'ning, Miss Mackenzie," drawled Leroy.

"Good morning," she answered quietly, her hands behind her.

"Sleep well?"

"Would you expect me to?"

"Why not, with York here doing the virgin-knight act outside your door?"

Her puzzled eyes discovered that Neil's face was one blush of embarrassment.

"He slept here on the po'ch," explained Leroy, amused. "It's a great fad, this outdoor sleeping. The doctors recommend it strong for sick people. You wouldn't think to look at him York was sick. He looks plumb husky. But looks are right deceptive. It's a fact, Miss Mackenzie, that he was so sick last night I wasn't dead sure he'd live till mo'ning."

The eyes of the men met like rapiers. Neil said nothing, and Leroy dropped him from his mind as if he were a trifle and devoted his attention to Alice.

"Breakfast is ready, Miss Mackenzie. This way, please."

The outlaw led her to the dining room, where the young woman met a fresh surprise. The table was white with immaculate linen and shone with silver. She sat down to breakfast food with cream, followed by quail on toast, bacon and eggs, and really good coffee. Moreover, she discovered that this terror of the border knew how to handle his knife and fork, was not deficient in the little niceties of table decorum. He talked, and talked well, ignoring, like a perfect host, the relation that existed between them. They sat opposite each other and ate alone, waited upon by the Mexican woman. Alice wondered if he kept solitary state when she was not there or ate with the other men.

It was evening before Hardman returned from the mission upon which he had been sent in place of the obstinate Neil. He reported at once to Leroy, who came smilingly to the place where she was sitting on the porch to tell her his news.

"Webb Mackenzie's going to raise that thirty thousand, all right. He's promised to raise it inside of three days," he told her triumphantly.

"And shall I have to stay here three whole days?"

He looked with half-shut, smoldering eyes at her slender exquisiteness, compact of a strange charm that was both well-bred and gypsyish. There was a scarce-veiled passion in his gaze that troubled her. More than once that day she had caught it.

"Three days ain't so long. I could stand three months of you and wish for more," he told her.

Lightly she turned the subject, but not without a chill of fear. Three days was a long time. Much might happen if this wolf slipped the leash of his civilization.

It was next day that an incident occurred which was to affect the course of events more than she could guess at the time. A bunch of wild hill steers had been driven down by Hardman, Reilly, and Neil in the afternoon and were inclosed in the corral with the cows from the Rocking Chair Ranch. Just before sunset Leroy, who had been away all day, returned and sauntered over from the stable to join Alice. It struck the girl from his flushed appearance that he had been drinking. In his eye she found a wild devil of lawlessness that set her heart pounding. If Neil and he clashed now there would be murder done. Of that she felt sure.

That she set herself to humor the Wolf's whims was no more for her own safety than for that of the man who had been her friend. She curbed her fears, clamped down her startled maiden modesty, parried his advances with light words and gay smiles. Once Neil passed, and his eyes asked a question. She shook her head, unnoticed by Leroy. She would fight her own battle as long as she could. It was to divert him that she proposed they go down to the corral and look at the wild cattle the men had driven down. She told him she had heard a great deal about them, but had never seen any. If he would go with her she would like to look at them.

The outlaw was instantly at her service, and they sauntered across. In her hand the girl carried a closed umbrella she had been using to keep off the sun.

They stood at the gate of the corral looking at the long-legged, shaggy creatures, as wild and as active almost as hill deer. On horseback one could pass to and fro among them without danger, but in a closed corral a man on foot would have taken a chance. Nobody knew this better than Leroy. But the liquor was still in his head, and even when sober he was reckless beyond other men.

"They need water," he said, and with that opened the gate and started for the windmill.

He sauntered carelessly across, with never a glance at the dangerous animals among which he was venturing. A great bull pawed the ground lowered its head, and made a rush at the unconscious man. Alice called to him to look out, then whipped open the gate and ran after him. Leroy turned, and, in a flash, saw that which for an instant filled him with a deadly paralysis. Between him and the bull, directly in the path of its rush, stood this slender girl, defenseless.

Even as his revolver flashed out from the scabbard the outlaw knew he was too late to save her, for she stood in such a position that he could not hit a vital spot. Suddenly her umbrella opened in the face of the animal. Frightened, it set its feet wide and slithered to a halt so close to her that its chorus pierced the silk of the umbrella. With one hand Leroy swept the girl behind him; with the other he pumped three bullets into the forehead of the bull. Without a groan it keeled over, dead before it reached the ground.

Alice leaned against the iron support of the windmill. She was so white that the man expected her to sink down. One glance showed him other cattle pawing the ground angrily.

"Come!" he ordered, and, putting an arm round her waist, he ran with her to the gate. Yet a moment, and they were through in safety.

She leaned against him helpless for an instant before she had strength to disengage herself. "Thank you. I'm all right now."

"I thought you were going to faint," he explained.

She nodded. "I nearly did."

His face was colorless. "You saved my life."

"Then we're quits, for you saved mine," she answered, with a shaken attempt at a smile.

He shook his head. "That's not the same at all. I had to do that, and there was no risk to it. But you chose to save me, to risk your life for mine."

She saw that he was greatly moved, and that his emotion had swept away the effects of the liquid as a fresh breeze does a fog.

"I didn't know I was risking my life. I saw you didn't see."

"I didn't think there was a woman alive had the pluck to do it—and for me, your enemy. That what you count me, isn't it—an enemy?"

"I don't know. I can't quite think of you as friend, can I?"

"And yet I would have protected you from any danger at any cost."

"Except the danger of yourself," she said, in low voice, meeting him eye to eye.

He accepted her correction with a groan, an wheeled away, leaning his arms on the corral fence and looking away to that saddle between the peak which still glowed with sunset light.

"I haven't met a woman of your kind before in ten years," he said presently. "I've lived on you looks, your motions, the inflections of your voice. I suppose I've been starved for that sort of thing and didn't know it till you came. It's been like a glimpse of heaven to me." He laughed bitterly: and went on: "Of course, I had to take to drinking and let you see the devil I am. When I'm sober you would be as safe with me as with York. But the excitement of meeting you—I have to ride my emotions to death so as to drain them to the uttermost. Drink stimulates the imagination, and I drank."

"I'm sorry."

Her voice said more than the words. He looked at her curiously. "You're only a girl. What do you know about men of my sort? You have been wrappered and sheltered all your life. And yet you understand me better than any of the people I meet. All my life I have fought with myself. I might have been a gentleman and I'm only a wolf. My appetites and passions, stronger than myself dragged me down. It was Kismet, the destiny ordained for me from my birth."

"Isn't there always hope for a man who knows his weaknesses and fights against them?" she asked timidly.

"No, there is not," came the harsh answer. "Besides, I don't fight. I yield to mine. Enough of that. It is you we have to consider, not me. You have saved my life, and I have got to pay the debt."

"I didn't think who you were," her honesty compelled her to say.

"That doesn't matter. You did it. I'm going to take you back to your father and straight as I can."

Her eyes lit. "Without a ransom?"

"Yes."

"You pay your debts like a gentleman, sir."

"I'm not coyote all through."

She could only ignore the hunger that stared out of his eyes for her. "What about your friends? Will they let me go?"

"They'll do as I say. What kicking they do will be done mostly in private, and when they're away from me."

"I don't want to make trouble for you."

"You won't make trouble for me. If there's any trouble it will be for them," he said grimly.

Neither of them made any motion toward the house. The girl felt a strange impulse of tenderness toward this man who had traveled so fast the road to destruction. She had seen before that deep hunger of the eyes, for she was of the type of woman that holds a strong attraction for men. It told her that he had looked in the face of his happiness too late—too late by the many years of a misspent life that had decreed inexorably the character he could no longer change.

"I am sorry," she said again. "I didn't see that in you at first. I misjudged you. One can't label men just good or bad, as the novelists used to. You have taught me that—you and Mr. Neil."

His low, sardonic laughter rippled out. "I'm bad enough. Don't make any mistake about that, Miss Mackenzie. York's different. He's just a good man gone wrong. But I'm plain miscreant."

"Oh, no," she protested.

"As bad as they make them, but not wolf clear through," he said again. "Something's happened to me to-day. It won't change me. I've gone too far for that. But some morning when you read in the papers that Wolf Leroy died with his boots on and everybody in sight registers his opinion of the deceased you'll remember one thing. He wasn't a wolf to you—not at the last."

"I'll not forget," she said, and the quick tears were in her eyes.

York Neil came toward them from the house. It was plain from his manner he had a joke up his sleeve.

"You're wanted, Phil," he announced.

"Wanted where?"

"You got a visitor in there," Neil said, with a grin and a jerk of his thumb toward the house. "Came blundering into the draw sorter accidental-like, but some curious. So I asked him if he wouldn't light and stay a while. He thought it over, and figured he would."

"Who is it?" asked Leroy.

"You go and see. I ain't giving away what your Christmas presents are. I aim to let Santa surprise you a few."

Miss Mackenzie followed the outlaw chief into the house, and over his shoulder glimpsed two men. One of them was the Irishman, Cork Reilly, and he sat with a Winchester across his knees. The other had his back toward them, but he turned as they entered, and nodded casually to the outlaw. Helen's heart jumped to her throat when she saw it was Val Collins.

The two men looked at each other steadily in a long silence. Wolf Leroy was the first to speak.

"You damn fool!" The swarthy face creased to an evil smile of derision.

"I ce'tainly do seem to butt in considerable, Mr. Leroy," admitted Collins, with an answering smile.

Leroy's square jaw set like a vise. "It won't happen again, Mr. Sheriff."

"I'd hate to gamble on that heavy," returned Collins easily. Then he caught sight of the girl's white face, and rose to his feet with outstretched hand.

"Sit down," snapped out Reilly.

"Oh, that's all right I'm shaking hands with the lady. Did you think I was inviting you to drill a hole in me, Mr. Reilly?"



CHAPTER 18. A DINNER FOR THREE

"I thought we bumped you off down at Epitaph," Leroy said.

"Along with Scott? Well, no. You see, I'm a regular cat to kill, Mr. Leroy, and I couldn't conscientiously join the angels with so lame a story as a game laig to explain my coming," said Collins cheerfully.

"In that case—"

"Yes, I understand. You'd be willing to accommodate with a hole in the haid instead of one in the laig. But I'll not trouble you."

"What are you doing here? Didn't I warn you to attend to your own business and leave me alone?"

"Seems to me you did load me up with some good advice, but I plumb forgot to follow it."

The Wolf cursed under his breath. "You came here at your own risk, then?"

"Well, I did and I didn't," corrected the sheriff easily. "I've got a five-thousand policy in the Southeastern Life Insurance Company, so I reckon it's some risk to them. And, by the way, it's a company I can recommend."

"Does it insure against suicide?" asked Leroy, his masked, smiling face veiling thinly a ruthless purpose.

"And against hanging. Let me strongly urge you to take out a policy at once," came the prompt retort.

"You think it necessary?"

"Quite. When you and York Neil and Hardman made an end of Scott you threw ropes round your own necks. Any locoed tenderfoot would know that."

The sheriff's unflinching look met the outlaw's black frown serene and clear-eyed.

"And would he know that you had committed suicide when you ran this place down and came here?" asked Leroy, with silken cruelty.

"Well, he ought to know it. The fact is, Mr. Leroy, that it hadn't penetrated my think-tank that this was your hacienda when I came mavericking in."

"Just out riding for your health?"

"Not exactly. I was looking for Miss Mackenzie. I cut her trail about six miles from the Rocking Chair and followed it where she wandered around. The trail led directly away from the ranch toward the mountains. That didn't make me any easy in my mind. So I just jogged along and elected myself an investigating committee. I arrived some late, but here I am, right side up—and so hearty welcome that my friend Cork won't hear of my leaving at all. He don't do a thing but entertain me—never lets his attention wander. Oh, I'm the welcome guest, all right. No doubt about that."

Wolf Leroy turned to Alice. "I think you had better go to your room," he said gently.

"Oh, no, no; let me stay," she implored. "You would never—you would never—" The words died on her white lips, but the horror in her eyes finished the question.

He met her gaze fully, and answered her doggedly. "You're not in this, Miss Mackenzie. It's between him and me. I shan't allow even you to interfere."

"But—oh, it is horrible! for two minutes."

He shook his head.

"You must! Please."

"What use?"

Let me see you alone

Her troubled gaze shifted to the strong, brown, sun-baked face of the man who had put himself in this deadly peril to save her. His keen, blue-gray eyes, very searching and steady, met hers with a courage she thought splendid, and her heart cried out passionately against the sacrifice.

"You shall not do it. Oh, please let me talk it over with you."

"No."

"Have you forgotten already?—and you said you would always remember." She almost whispered it.

She had stung his consent at last. "Very well," he said, and opened the door to let her pass into the inner room.

But she noticed that his eyes were hard as jade.

"Don't you see that he came here to save me?" she cried, when they were alone. "Don't you see it was for me? He didn't come to spy out your place of hiding."

"I see that he has found it. If I let him go, he will bring back a posse to take us."

"You could ride across the line into Mexico."

"I could, but I won't."

"But why?"

"Because, Miss Mackenzie, the money we took from the express car of the Limited is hidden here, and I don't know where it is; because the sun won't ever rise on a day when Val Collins will drive me out of Arizona."

"I don't know what you mean about the money, but you must let him go. You spoke of a service I had done you. This is my pay."

"To turn him loose to hunt us down?"

"He'll not trouble you if you let him go."

A sardonic smile touched his face. "A lot you know of him. He thinks it his duty to rid the earth of vermin like us. He'd never let up till he got us or we got him. Well, we've got him now, good and plenty. He took his chances, didn't he? It isn't as if he didn't know what he was up against. He'll tell you himself it's a square deal. He's game, and he won't squeal because we win and he has to pay forfeit."

The girl wrung her hands despairingly.

"It's his life or mine—and not only mine, but my men's," continued the outlaw. "Would you turn a wolf loose from your sheep pen to lead the pack to the kill?"

"But if he were to promise—"

"We're not talking about the ordinary man—he'd promise anything and lie to-morrow. But Sheriff Collins won't do it. If you think you can twist a promise out of him not to take advantage of what he has found out you're guessing wrong. When you think he's a quitter, just look at that cork hand of his, and remember how come he to get it. He'll take his medicine proper, but he'll never crawl."

"There must be some way," she cried desperately,

"Since you make a point of it, I'll give him his chance."

"You'll let him go?" The joy in her voice was tremulously plain.

He laughed, leaning carelessly against the mantelshelf. But his narrowed eyes watched her vigilantly. "I didn't say I would let him go. What I said was that I'd give him a chance."

"How?"

"They say he's a dead shot. I'm a few with a gun myself. We'll ride down to the plains together, and find a good lonely spot suitable for a graveyard. Then one of us will ride away, and the other will stay, or perhaps both of us will stay."

She shuddered. "No—no—no. I won't have it."

"Afraid something might happen to me, ma'am?" he asked, with a queer laugh,

"I won't have it."

"Afraid, perhaps, he might be the one left for the coyotes and the buzzards?"

She was white to the lips, but at his next word the blood came flaming back to her cheeks.

"Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you; say you love him, and be done with it? Say it and I'll take him back to Tucson with you safe as if he were a baby."

She covered her face with her hands, but with two steps he had reached her and captured he hands.

"The truth," he demanded, and his eyes compelled.

"It is to save his life?"

He laughed harshly. "Here's melodrama for you! Yes—to save your lover's life."

She lifted her eyes to his bravely. "What you say is true. I love him."

Leroy bowed ironically. "I congratulate Mr. Collins, who is now quite safe, so far as I am concerned. Meanwhile, lest he be jealous of your absence, shall we return now?"

Some word of sympathy for the reckless scamp trembled on her lips, but her instinct told her would hold it insult added to injury, and she left her pity unvoiced.

"If you please."

But as he heeled away she laid a timid hand on his arm. He turned and looked grimly down at the working face, at the sweet, soft, pitiful eyes brimming with tears. She was pure woman now, all the caste pride dissolved in yearning pity.

"Oh, you lamb—you precious lamb," he groaned, and clicked his teeth shut on the poignant pain of his loss.

"I think you're splendid," she told him. "Oh, I know what you've done—that you are not good. I know you've wasted your life and lived with your hand against every man's. But I can't help all that. I look for the good in you, and I find it. Even in your sins you are not petty. You know how to rise to an opportunity."

This man of contradictions, forever the creature of his impulses, gave the lie to her last words by signally failing to rise to this one. He snatched her to him, and looked down hungry-eyed at her sweet beauty, as fresh and fragrant as the wild rose in the copse.

"Please," she cried, straining from him with shy, frightened eyes.

For answer he kissed her fiercely on the cheeks, and eyes, and mouth.

"The rest are his, but these are mine," he laughed mirthlessly.

Then, flinging her from him, he led the way into the next room. Flushed and disheveled, she followed. He had outraged her maiden instincts and trampled down her traditions of caste, but she had no time to think of this now.

"If you're through explaining the mechanism of that Winchester to Sheriff Collins we'll reluctantly dispense with your presence, Mr. Reilly. We have arranged a temporary treaty of peace," the chief outlaw said.

Reilly, a huge lout of a fellow with a lowering countenance, ventured to expostulate. "Ye want to be careful of him. He's quicker'n chain lightning."

His chief exploded with low-voiced fury. "When I ask your advice, give it, you fat-brained son of a brand blotter. Until then padlock that mouth of yours. Vamos."

Reilly vanished, his face a picture of impotent malice, and Leroy continued:

"We're going to the Rocking Chair in the morning, Mr. Collins—at least, you and Miss Mackenzie are going there. I'm going part way. We've arranged a little deal all by our lones, subject to your approval. You get away without that hole in your head. Miss Mackenzie goes with you, and I get in return the papers you took off Scott and Webster."

"You mean I am to give up the hunt?" asked Collins.

"Not at all. I'll be glad to death to see you blundering in again when Miss Mackenzie isn't here to beg you off. The point is that in exchange for your freedom and Miss Mackenzie's I get those papers you left in a safety-deposit vault in Epitaph. It'll save me the trouble of sticking up the First National and winging a few indiscreet citizens of that burgh. Savvy?"

"That's all you ask?" demanded the surprised sheriff.

"All I ask is to get those papers in my hand and a four-hour start before you begin the hunt. Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal, but I give it to you straight that I'll be after you as soon as the four hours are up," returned Collins promptly. "I don't know what magic Miss Mackenzie used. Still, I must compliment her on getting us out mighty easy."

But though the sheriff looked smilingly at Alice, that young woman, usually mistress of herself in all emergencies, did not lift her eyes to meet his. Indeed, he thought her strangely embarrassed. She was as flushed and tongue-tied as a country girl in unaccustomed company. She seemed another woman than the self-possessed young beauty he had met a month before on the Limited, but he found her shy abashment charming.

"I guess you thought you had come to the end of the passage, Mr. Collins," suggested the outlaw, with listless curiosity.

"I didn't know whether to order the flowers or not, but 'way down in my heart I was backing my luck," Collins told him.

"Of course it's understood that you are on parole until we separate," said Leroy curtly.

"Of course."

"Then we'll have supper at once, for we'll have to be on the road early." He clapped his hands together, and the Mexican woman appeared. Her master flung out a command or two in her own language.

"—poco tiempo,—" she answered, and disappeared.

In a surprisingly short time the meal was ready, set out on a table white with Irish linen and winking with cut glass and silver.

"Mr. Leroy does not believe at all in doing when in Rome as the Romans do," Alice explained to Collins, in answer to his start of amazement. "He's a regular Aladdin. I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see electric lights come on next."

"One has to attempt sometimes to blot out the forsaken desert," said Leroy. "Try this cut of slow elk, Miss Mackenzie. I think you'll like it."

"Slow elk! What is that?" asked the girl, to make talk.

"Mr. Collins will tell you," smiled Leroy.

She turned to the sheriff, who first apologized, with a smile, to his host. "Slow elk, Miss Mackenzie, is veal that has been rustled. I expect Mr. Leroy has pressed a stray calf into our Service."

"I see," she flashed. "Pressed veal."

The outlaw smiled at her ready wit, and took on himself the burden of further explanation. "And this particular slow elk comes from a ranch on the Aravaipa owned by Mr. Collins. York shot it up in the hills a day or two ago."

"Shouldn't have been straying so far from its range," suggested Collins, with a laugh. "But it's good veal, even if I say it that shouldn't."

"Thank you," burlesqued the bandit gravely, with such an ironic touch of convention that Alice smiled.

After dinner Leroy produced cigars, and with the permission of Miss Mackenzie the two men smoked while the conversation ran on a topic as impersonal as literature. A criticism of novels and plays written to illustrate the frontier was the line into which the discussion fell, and the girl from the city, listening with a vivid interest, was pleased to find that these two real men talked with point and a sense of dexterous turns. She felt a sort of proud proprietorship in their power, and wished that some of the tailors' models she had met in society, who held so good a conceit of themselves, might come under the spell of their strong, tolerant virility. Whatever the difference between them, it might be truly said of both that they had lived at first hand and come in touch closely with all the elemental realities. One of them was a romantic villain and the other an unromantic hero, but her pulsing emotions morally condemned one no more than the other.

This was the sheer delight of her esthetic sense of fitness, that strong men engaged in a finish fight could rise to so perfect a courtesy that an outsider could not have guessed the antagonism that ran between them, enduring as life.

Leroy gave the signal for breaking up by looking at his watch. "Afraid I must say 'Lights out.' It's past eleven. We'll have to be up and on our way with the hooters. Sleep well, Miss Mackenzie. You don't need to worry about waking. I'll have you called in good time. Buenos noches."

He held the door for her as she passed out; and, in passing, her eyes rose to meet his.

"—Buenos noches, senor;—I'm sure I shall sleep well to-night," she said.

It had been the day of Alice Mackenzie' life. Emotions and sensations, surging through her, had trodden on each other's heels. Woman-like, she welcomed the darkness to analyze and classify the turbid chaos of her mind. She had been swept into sympathy with an outlaw, to give him no worse name. She had felt herself nearer to him than to some honest men she could name who had offered her their love.

Surely, that had been bad enough, but worse was to follow. This discerning scamp had torn aside her veils of maiden reserve and exposed the secret fancy of her heart, unknown before even to herself. She had confessed love for this big-hearted sheriff and frontiersman. Here she could plead an ulterior motive. To save his life any deception was permissible. Yes, but where lay the truth? With that insistent demand of the outlaw had rushed over her a sudden wave of joy. What could it mean unless it meant what she would not admit that it could mean? Why, the man was impossible. He was not of her class. She had scarce seen him a half-dozen times. Her first meeting with him had been only a month ago. One month ago—

A remembrance flashed through her that brought her from the bed in a barefoot search for matches. When the candle was relit he slipped a chamoisskin pouch from her neck and from it took a sealed envelope. It was the note in which the sheriff on the night of the train robbery had written his prediction of how the matter would come out. She was to open the envelope in a month, and the month was up to-night.