“Why—­I expected to go along, of course,” she said.  “I’ve got a suit—­I’ve done it before—­I mean, I expect to dress as you are, Glen, and help to run the line.”

Pratt grinned good-naturedly.  “Keeps it all in the family.  That’s one advantage.”

“All right,” said Glen.  “Hike upstairs and don your splendors.”

He had hired a car and stocked it with provisions, tents, and bedding.  He hastened off and returned with the chauffeur to the door.

Beth, in the costume she had worn on the day when Van found her lost in the desert, made a shy, frightened youth, when at length she appeared, but her courage was superb.

At ten o’clock they left the town, and rolled far out to the westward on their course.

Van learned of their departure.  He was certain that Beth had gone to the “Laughing Water” claim, perhaps to be married to Bostwick.  Three times he went to the hay-yard that day, intent upon saddling his broncho, riding to the claim himself, and fighting out his rights by the methods of primitive man.

On the third of his visits he met a stranger who offered to purchase Suvy on the spot at a price of two hundred dollars.

“Don’t offer me a million or I might be tempted,” Van told him gravely.  “I’ll sell you my soul for a hundred.”

The would-be purchaser was dry.

“I want a soul I can ride.”

Van looked him over critically.

“Think you could ride my cayuse?”

“This broach?” said the man.  “Surest thing you know.”

“I need the money,” Van admitted.  “I’ll bet you the pony against your two hundred you can’t.”

“You’re on.”

Van called to his friend, the man who ran the yard.

“Come over here, Charlie, and hold the stakes.  Here’s a man who wants to ride my horse.”

Charlie came, heard the plan of the wager, accepted the money, and watched Van throw on the saddle.

“I didn’t know you wanted to sell,” he said.  “You know I want that animal.”

“If he goes he sells himself,” said Van.  “If he doesn’t, you’re next, same terms.”

“Let me have that pair of spurs,” said the stranger, denoting a pair that hung upon a nail.  “I guess they’ll fit.”

He adjusted the spurs as one accustomed to their use.  Van merely glanced around.  Nevertheless, he felt a sinking of the heart.  Five hundred dollars, much as he needed money, would not have purchased his horse.  And inasmuch as luck had been against him, he suddenly feared he might be on the point of losing Suvy now for a price he would have scorned.

“Boy,” he said in a murmur to the broncho, “if I thought you’d let any bleached-out anthropoid like that remain on deck, I wouldn’t want you anyway—­savvy that?”

Suvy’s ears were playing back and forth in excessive nervousness and questioning.  He had turned his head to look at Van with evident joy at the thought of bearing him away to the hills—­they two afar off together.  Then came a disappointment.