“All right, mommie.”  Drawing her kimono closer about her, Mary V put her face up to be kissed.  Her mother hesitated, looking dubiously at the cream dabs, compromised with a peck on Mary V’s forehead, and went away.  Mary V braided her hair, put on a pair of beaded moccasins, buckled on her six-shooter and gathered together her other paraphernalia.  She waited an hour by her wrist watch, but even that sixty minutes of inaction did not bring her better judgment to the rescue.

Sober judgment had no place in her thoughts.  Instead, she spent the time in wondering if Tango would let her catch him in the corral; in fretting because she must wait at all, when there was no telling what might have happened at Sinkhole; and in giving audience to a temptation that came with the lagging minutes and began persuading her that Tango was too slow for the trip she had before her; and in climbing into bed, turning over three times and climbing out again, leaving the light covering in its usual heap in the middle.

It was half-past nine when she climbed out of her window with her riding shoes and puttees, her lunch and her camera and her field glasses, in a bundle under one arm.  She went in her moccasins until she had passed the bunk house and reached the shed where she kept her saddle.

A dozen horses were dozing over by the feed rack in the corral, and Mary V’s eyes strayed often that way while she was clothing her feet for the ride.  Tango was a good little horse, but he was not the horse for a heroine to ride when she went out across the desert at midnight to rescue—­er—­a good-for-nothing, conceited, quarrelsome, altogether unbearable young man whom she thoroughly hated, but who was, after all, a human being and therefore to be rescued when necessary.

Would she dare—?  Mary V hurried the last puttee buckle, picked up her bridle and a battered feed pan, and went quietly across the corral.  Wondering if she would dare made her daring.

Most of the horses sidled off from her approach and began to circle slowly to the far side of the corral.  Tango lifted his head and looked at her reproachfully, moved his feet as though tempted to retreat, and thought better of it.  What was the use?  Mary V always did what she wanted to do; if not in one way, then in another.  Knowing her so well, Tango stood still.

Mary V smiled.  Just beyond him another horse also stood still.  A tall, big-chested, brilliant-eyed brown, with a crinkly mane, forelock, and tail, and with a reputation that made his name familiar to men in other counties.  His official name was Messenger, but the boys called him Jake for short.  They also asserted pridefully that he had “good blood in him.”  He belonged to Bill Hayden, really, but the whole Rolling R outfit felt a proprietary interest in him because he had “cleaned up” every horse in southern Arizona outside the professional class.

Ordinarily Mary V would never have thought of such a thing as riding Jake.  She would have considered it as much as her life was worth to put her saddle on him without first asking Bill.  Once she had asked Bill, and Bill had looked as if she had asked for his toothbrush; shocked, incredulous, as though he could not believe his ears.  “Well, I should sa-ay not!” Bill had replied when she had made it plain that she expected an answer.