Madeline’s rooms occupied the west end of the building and comprised four in number, all opening out upon the long porch.  There was a small room for her maid, another which she used as an office, then her sleeping-apartment; and, lastly, the great light chamber which she had liked so well upon first sight, and which now, simply yet beautifully furnished and containing her favorite books and pictures, she had come to love as she had never loved any room at home.  In the morning the fragrant, balmy air blew the white curtains of the open windows; at noon the drowsy, sultry quiet seemed to creep in for the siesta that was characteristic of the country; in the afternoon the westering sun peeped under the porch roof and painted the walls with gold bars that slowly changed to red.

Madeline Hammond cherished a fancy that the transformation she had wrought in the old Spanish house and in the people with whom she had surrounded herself, great as that transformation had been, was as nothing compared to the one wrought in herself.  She had found an object in life.  She was busy, she worked with her hands as well as mind, yet she seemed to have more time to read and think and study and idle and dream than ever before.  She had seen her brother through his difficulties, on the road to all the success and prosperity that he cared for.  Madeline had been a conscientious student of ranching and an apt pupil of Stillwell.  The old cattleman, in his simplicity, gave her the place in his heart that was meant for the daughter he had never had.  His pride in her, Madeline thought, was beyond reason or belief or words to tell.  Under his guidance, sometimes accompanied by Alfred and Florence, Madeline had ridden the ranges and had studied the life and work of the cowboys.  She had camped on the open range, slept under the blinking stars, ridden forty miles a day in the face of dust and wind.  She had taken two wonderful trips down into the desert—­one trip to Chiricahua, and from there across the waste of sand and rock and alkali and cactus to the Mexican borderline; and the other through the Aravaipa Valley, with its deep, red-walled canyons and wild fastnesses.

This breaking-in, this training into Western ways, though she had been a so-called outdoor girl, had required great effort and severe pain; but the education, now past its grades, had become a labor of love.  She had perfect health, abounding spirits.  She was so active hat she had to train herself into taking the midday siesta, a custom of the country and imperative during the hot summer months.  Sometimes she looked in her mirror and laughed with sheer joy at sight of the lithe, audacious, brown-faced, flashing-eyed creature reflected there.  It was not so much joy in her beauty as sheer joy of life.  Eastern critics had been wont to call her beautiful in those days when she had been pale and slender and proud and cold.  She laughed.  If they could only see her now!  From the tip of her golden head to her feet she was alive, pulsating, on fire.