It may be seen that there was a background of gloomy thought in his mind, yet from time to time he startled the mustang to a harder pace by a ringing burst of song.  Remembering the windlike gallop of Alcatraz, it seemed to him that the buckskin was hardly keeping to a lope—­as a matter of fact the cow pony was being ridden to the verge of exhaustion.  So the songs of Perris kept the rhythm of the departed hoofs of wild Alcatraz and the shining form of the stallion wavered and danced in his mind.

The ranch building grew out of the dun evening and he smiled at the sight.  The bank roll of Marianne had not been thick enough to enable her to do the reconstruction she desired, but at least she had been able to hire a corps of painters, so that the drab, weathered frame structures had been lifted into crimson and green roofs, white yellow, and flaming orange walls.  “A little color is a dangerous thing,” Marianne had said, somewhat overwisely, “but a great deal of it is pretty certain to be pleasing.”  So she had let her fancy run amuck, so to speak, and behind the merciful screen of trees there was now what Lew Hervey profanely termed:  “A whole damn rainbow gone plumb crazy.”  Even Marianne at times had her doubts, but from a distance and by dint of squinting, she was usually able to reduce the conglomerate to a tolerably harmonious whole.  “It’s a promise of changes to come,” she told herself.  “It’s a milestone pointing towards new goals.”  But the milestone set Perris chuckling.  Yonder a scarlet roof burned through the shadows above moonwhite walls—­that was a winter-shed for cows.  Straight before him were the hot orange sides of the house itself.  He dismounted at the arched entrance and walked into the patio.

The first thing that Perris heard was the most provocative and sneering tone of the foreman, and cursing the slowness of the buckskin, he realized that he had been beaten to his goal.  He paused in the shadow of the arch to take stock of his position.  The squat arcade of ’dobe surrounding the patio was lighted vaguely by a single lantern at his left.  It barely served to make the shadowy outlines of the house visible, the heavy arches, roughly sketched doorways, and hinted at the forms of the cowpunchers who were ranged under the far arcade for their after-dinner smoke, all eagerly listening to the dialogue between the mistress and the foreman.  When a breath of wind made the flame jump in the lantern chimney a row of grinning faces stood out from the shadow.

Marianne sat in a deep chair which made her appear girlishly slight.  The glow of the reading lamp on the table beside her fell on her hair, cast a highlight on her cheek, and showed her hand lying on the open book in her lap, palm up.  There was something about that hand which spoke to Perris of helpless surrender, something more in the gloomy eyes which looked up to the foreman where he leaned against a pillar.  The voice drawled calmly to an end:  “And that’s what he is, this gent you got to finish what me and the rest started.  Here he is to tell you that I’ve spoke the truth.”