Madeline, however, did not forget nor give it up.  If she had forgotten or surrendered, she felt that she would have been relinquishing infinitely more than hope to aid one ruined man.  But she was at a loss to know what further steps to take.  Days passed, and each one brought additional gossip of Stewart’s headlong career toward the Yuma penitentiary.  For he had crossed the line into Cochise County, Arizona, where sheriffs kept a stricter observance of law.  Finally a letter came from a friend of Nels’s in Chiricahua saying that Stewart had been hurt in a brawl there.  His hurt was not serious, but it would probably keep him quiet long enough to get sober, and this opportunity, Nels’s informant said, would be a good one for Stewart’s friends to take him home before he got locked up.  This epistle inclosed a letter to Stewart from his sister.  Evidently, it had been found upon him.  It told a story of illness and made an appeal for aid.  Nels’s friend forwarded this letter without Stewart’s knowledge, thinking Stillwell might care to help Stewart’s family.  Stewart had no money, he said.

The sister’s letter found its way to Madeline.  She read it, tears in her eyes.  It told Madeline much more than its brief story of illness and poverty and wonder why Gene had not written home for so long.  It told of motherly love, sisterly love, brotherly love—­dear family ties that had not been broken.  It spoke of pride in this El Capitan brother who had become famous.  It was signed “your loving sister Letty.”

Not improbably, Madeline revolved in mind, this letter was one reason for Stewart’s headstrong, long-continued abasement.  It had been received too late—­after he had squandered the money that would have meant so much to mother and sister.  Be that as it might, Madeline immediately sent a bank-draft to Stewart’s sister with a letter explaining that the money was drawn in advance on Stewart’s salary.  This done, she impulsively determined to go to Chiricahua herself.

The horseback-rides Madeline had taken to this little Arizona hamlet had tried her endurance to the utmost; but the journey by automobile, except for some rocky bits of road and sandy stretches, was comfortable, and a matter of only a few hours.  The big touring-car was still a kind of seventh wonder to the Mexicans and cowboys; not that automobiles were very new and strange, but because this one was such an enormous machine and capable of greater speed than an express-train.  The chauffeur who had arrived with the car found his situation among the jealous cowboys somewhat far removed from a bed of roses.  He had been induced to remain long enough to teach the operating and mechanical technique of the car.  And choice fell upon Link Stevens, for the simple reason that of all the cowboys he was the only one with any knack for mechanics.  Now Link had been a hard-riding, hard-driving cowboy, and that winter he had sustained an injury to his leg, caused by a bad fall, and was unable to sit his horse.  This had been gall and wormwood to him.  But when the big white automobile came and he was elected to drive it, life was once more worth living for him.  But all the other cowboys regarded Link and his machine as some correlated species of demon.  They were deathly afraid of both.