“I guess the Greaser’s as good as behind the bars,” said the deputy, easing up his holsters.  “You’ve got him dead.  If it had been just one time, these Mexicans can’t tell good money from bad; but this little yaller rascal belongs to a gang of counterfeiters, I know.  This is the first time I’ve been able to catch him doing the trick.  He’s got a girl down there in them Mexican jacals on the river bank.  I seen her one day when I was watching him.  She’s as pretty as a red heifer in a flower bed.”

Littlefield shoved the counterfeit dollar into his pocket, and slipped his memoranda of the case into an envelope.  Just then a bright, winsome face, as frank and jolly as a boy’s, appeared in the doorway, and in walked Nancy Derwent.

“Oh, Bob, didn’t court adjourn at twelve to-day until to-morrow?” she asked of Littlefield.

“It did,” said the district attorney, “and I’m very glad of it.  I’ve got a lot of rulings to look up, and—­”

“Now, that’s just like you.  I wonder you and father don’t turn to law books or rulings or something!  I want you to take me out plover-shooting this afternoon.  Long Prairie is just alive with them.  Don’t say no, please!  I want to try my new twelve-bore hammerless.  I’ve sent to the livery stable to engage Fly and Bess for the buckboard; they stand fire so nicely.  I was sure you would go.”

They were to be married in the fall.  The glamour was at its height.  The plovers won the day—­or, rather, the afternoon—­over the calf-bound authorities.  Littlefield began to put his papers away.

There was a knock at the door.  Kilpatrick answered it.  A beautiful, dark-eyed girl with a skin tinged with the faintest lemon colour walked into the room.  A black shawl was thrown over her head and wound once around her neck.

She began to talk in Spanish, a voluble, mournful stream of melancholy music.  Littlefield did not understand Spanish.  The deputy did, and he translated her talk by portions, at intervals holding up his hand to check the flow of her words.

“She came to see you, Mr. Littlefield.  Her name’s Joya Trevinas.  She wants to see you about—­well, she’s mixed up with that Rafael Ortiz.  She’s his—­she’s his girl.  She says he’s innocent.  She says she made the money and got him to pass it.  Don’t you believe her, Mr. Littlefield.  That’s the way with these Mexican girls; they’ll lie, steal, or kill for a fellow when they get stuck on him.  Never trust a woman that’s in love!”

“Mr. Kilpatrick!”

Nancy Derwent’s indignant exclamation caused the deputy to flounder for a moment in attempting to explain that he had misquoted his own sentiments, and then he went on with the translation: 

“She says she’s willing to take his place in the jail if you’ll let him out.  She says she was down sick with the fever, and the doctor said she’d die if she didn’t have medicine.  That’s why he passed the lead dollar on the drug store.  She says it saved her life.  This Rafael seems to be her honey, all right; there’s a lot of stuff in her talk about love and such things that you don’t want to hear.”