After all, she was but a little over sixteen, her head filled with the bright stuff of romance, and he was a forceful man who for his own purposes had long studied her.  She came to the tryst, albeit half in trembling, a dozen tremulous times ready for a fleeing retreat.

Again he was all deference to her.  He builded cunningly upon the fact that he trusted her; that he, a strong man, put his faith in her, a woman.  He flattered her as she had never been flattered, not too subtly, yet not so broadly as to arouse her suspicion of his intent.  He spoke quietly at first, then his voice seeming charged with his leaping ambition set responsive chords within her thrilling.  He pictured to her the state he was going to found, organize, rule, an uncertain number of fair miles stretching along a tropical coast; he made her see again a palatial dwelling with servants in livery, the blue waters of the Gulf, the white of dancing sails.  He spoke of a peace which was going to be declared between warring factions below the border within thirty days, of the magnificence to be Francisco Villa’s, of the position to be occupied by Jim Galloway at Villa’s side.  His planned development of a gold-mine he mentioned merely casually.

And then at length when Florrie was prepared for the passionate declaration he humbled himself at her feet, lifted his hands to her in supplication, told her in burning words of his love.  Whether the man did love her with all of the strength of his nature or whether he but meant to strike through her at John Engle, the richest man of this section of the State, it was for Jim Galloway alone to know.  Certainly not for Florrie, who listened wide-eyed. . . .  Once she thought that he was about to sweep her up into his arms; they had lifted suddenly from his sides.  She had drawn back, crying sharply:  “No, no!” But he had waited, had again grown deeply deferential, swerving immediately to further vividly colored pictures of life as it might be, of power and pomp, of a secure position from which a man and a woman might direct policies of state, shaping the lives of other men and women.

And in the end of that ardent interview Jim Galloway’s caution was still with him, his knowledge of the girl’s nature clear in his mind.  He did not ask her answer; he merely sought a third opportunity to speak with her, suggesting that upon the next night she slip out and meet him.  He would have a horse for her, one for himself; they could ride for a half-hour.  He had so much to tell her.

Perhaps a much more important factor than she realized in her action was Florrie’s new riding-habit.  It had been acquired but three days before and she knew very well just how she looked in it.  There would be a moon, almost at the full.  The full moon and the new riding-habit were the allies given by fate to Jim Galloway.

Besides all of this, she had not seen Elmer Page for a month.  Further, she knew that Elmer had gone riding upon at least one occasion with a girl of Las Palmas, Superintendent Kemble’s daughter.  And finally, there lies much rich adventure in just doing that which we know we should leave alone.  So Florrie, while her mother and father thought that she had gone early to bed, was on her way to meet Galloway.