During the remaining hour of jogging slowly through the sunshine, Sanchia Murray elaborated her plans, all directed toward the double end of hastening Longstreet’s venture and keeping his secret from Helen.  She went into detail, secured his consent upon each point or swiftly withdrew it to make another suggestion, and in the end awoke in him a keen sense of her generosity.  When they came to the first buildings of the straggling town she waved her hand gaily, swung off into a side street, and he rode on to overtake Alan and Helen.  Once around a corner Sanchia put spurs to her mare, struck the sweating shoulders with her quirt and raced on her way through puffing clouds of dust and barking dogs as though all leisureliness were gone before a sudden vital need for haste.  Before the party of three had come within sight of the hotel she had swung down from her saddle at the back door of the Montezuma House.  And every one who knows San Ramon knows the Montezuma, and every one who knows the place knows a house of sinister reputation.

At the hotel Howard dismounted first to give his hand to Helen.  This time she accepted it and even repaid him with a quick smile.  Longstreet, while Helen was dismounting, tipped the cattleman a sly wink.  It was meant to be full of meaning, but only succeeded in making Howard wonder.

‘If you two will wait for me a moment,’ said Longstreet, making a perfectly transparent pretence of having nothing of importance on his mind, ’I am going to ride over to the post office.  It’s just over yonder.  You’ll be on the porch when I come back?’ and without waiting for a reply he clucked to his horse and trotted away.  Helen looked after him in surprise.

‘Papa’s up to something he ought to leave alone,’ she decided wisely.  She turned to remount.

‘We’d better follow him and——­’

Suddenly her expression altered.  Her eyes softened and she added.

‘I know,’ she added.  ’No, we mustn’t follow him.  And he’ll be gone an hour.’

‘What is it?’ wondered Alan.

‘I am not quite old enough to stop having birthdays,’ she explained.  ’He’s just slipping off mysteriously as usual to buy something expensive and foolish for me.  He’s just about the dearest old dad in the world.’

So they tied their horses and went into the cool of the shady porch.  Because they had matters of their own to talk about, they did not concern themselves further with the eccentricities of a fond parent.  Meantime Longstreet, chuckling as he went, rode by the post office to establish a sort of moral alibi and thence proceeded to the court-house.  He found it readily, a square, paintless, dusty building upon a dying lawn.  Sanchia looking flushed and hot, was waiting for him under a tree in front.

‘Mr. Harkness is out,’ she told him immediately.  ’And as it happens, there is no one in the office.  But I have found where his assistant is.  He is Mr. Bates, and he has had a hard day, it seems, and is now having a late lunch at the Montezuma House.  We are to ride over there.’