She insisted upon being shown the inside of the Hope So, to the extreme confusion of that bewildered resort.

I pretended to be blind to this restless curiosity.  Sally understood the cause, too, and it divided her between a sweet gravity and a naughty humor.

The last, however, she never evinced in sight or hearing of Diane.

It seemed that we were indeed fated to cross the path of Vaughn Steele.  We saw him working round his adobe house; then we saw him on horseback.  Once we met him face to face in a store.

He gazed steadily into Diane Sampson’s eyes and went his way without any sign of recognition.  There was red in her face when he passed and white when he had gone.

That day she rode as I had never seen her, risking her life, unmindful of her horse.

Another day we met Steele down in the valley, where, inquiry discovered to us, he had gone to the home of an old cattleman who lived alone and was ill.

Last and perhaps most significant of all these meetings was the one when we were walking tired horses home through the main street of Linrock and came upon Steele just in time to see him in action.

It happened at a corner where the usual slouchy, shirt-sleeved loungers were congregated.  They were in high glee over the predicament of one ruffian who had purchased or been given a poor, emaciated little burro that was on his last legs.  The burro evidently did not want to go with its new owner, who pulled on a halter and then viciously swung the end of the rope to make welts on the worn and scarred back.

If there was one thing that Diane Sampson could not bear it was to see an animal in pain.  She passionately loved horses, and hated the sight of a spur or whip.

When we saw the man beating the little burro she cried out to me: 

“Make the brute stop!”

I might have made a move had I not on the instant seen Steele heaving into sight round the corner.

Just then the fellow, whom I now recognized to be a despicable character named Andrews, began to bestow heavy and brutal kicks upon the body of the little burro.  These kicks sounded deep, hollow, almost like the boom of a drum.

The burro uttered the strangest sound I ever heard issue from any beast and it dropped in its tracks with jerking legs that told any horseman what had happened.  Steele saw the last swings of Andrews’ heavy boot.  He yelled.  It was a sharp yell that would have made anyone start.  But it came too late, for the burro had dropped.

Steele knocked over several of the jeering men to get to Andrews.  He kicked the fellow’s feet from under him, sending him hard to the ground.

Then Steele picked up the end of the halter and began to swing it powerfully.  Resounding smacks mingled with hoarse bellows of fury and pain.  Andrews flopped here and there, trying to arise, but every time the heavy knotted halter beat him down.