“‘Pat, thet’s a fool idee, an’ if you do the trick it’ll hurt you all the rest of your life.  There’s absolutely no reason to frighten Miss Hammond.  An’ tryin’ to arrest her would be such a damned outrage as won’t be stood fer in El Cajon.  If you’re sore on me send me to jail.  I’ll go.  If you want to hurt Al Hammond, go an’ do it some man kind of way.  Don’t take your spite out on us by insultin’ a lady who has come hyar to hev a little visit.  We’re bad enough without bein’ low-down as Greasers.’

“It was a long talk for Gene, an’ I was as surprised as the rest of the fellers.  Think of Gene Stewart talkin’ soft an’ sweet to thet red-eyed coyote of a sheriff!  An’ Pat, he looked so devilishly gleeful thet if somethin’ about Gene hedn’t held me tight I’d hev got in the game my-self.  It was plain to me an’ others who spoke of it afterwards thet Pat Hawe hed forgotten the law an’ the officer in the man an’ his hate.

“‘I’m a-goin’, an’ I’m a-goin’ right now!’ he shouted.  “An’ after thet any one could hev heerd a clock tick a mile off.  Stewart seemed kind of chokin’, an’ he seemed to hev been bewildered by the idee of Hawe’s confrontin’ you.

“An’ finally he burst out:  ’But, man, think who it is!  It’s Miss Hammond!  If you seen her, even if you was locoed or drunk, you—­ you couldn’t do it.’

“’Couldn’t I?  Wal, I’ll show you damn quick.  What do I care who she is?  Them swell Eastern women—­I’ve heerd of them.  They’re not so much.  This Hammond woman—­’

“Suddenly Hawe shut up, an’ with his red mug turnin’ green he went for his gun.”

Stillwell paused in his narrative to get breath, and he wiped his moist brow.  And now his face began to lose its cragginess.  It changed, it softened, it rippled and wrinkled, and all that strange mobility focused and shone in a wonderful smile.

“An’ then, Miss Majesty, then there was somethin’ happened.  Stewart took Pat’s gun away from him and throwed it on the floor.  An’ what followed was beautiful.  Sure it was the beautifulest sight I ever seen.  Only it was over so soon!  A little while after, when the doctor came, he hed another patient besides the wounded Greaser, an’ he said thet this new one would require about four months to be up an’ around cheerful-like again.  An’ Gene Stewart hed hit the trail for the border.”

IV A Ride From Sunrise To Sunset

Next morning, when Madeline was aroused by her brother, it was not yet daybreak; the air chilled her, and in the gray gloom she had to feel around for matches and lamp.  Her usual languid manner vanished at a touch of the cold water.  Presently, when Alfred knocked on her door and said he was leaving a pitcher of hot water outside, she replied, with chattering teeth, “Th-thank y-you, b-but I d-don’t ne-need any now.”  She found it necessary, however, to warm her numb fingers before she could fasten hooks and buttons.  And when she was dressed she marked in the dim mirror that there were tinges of red in her cheeks.