“That is, if Mrs. Collins will go, too,” she added as an afterthought.

That young woman hesitated.  Though this man had led his miners against her brother, she was ready to believe the attack not caused by personal enmity.  The best of feeling did not exist between the owners of the Jackrabbit and those of the Mal Pais.  Dunke was suspected of boldly crossing into the territory of his neighbor where his veins did not lead.  But there had been no open rupture.  For the very reason that an undertow of feeling existed Nellie consented to join the party.  She did not want by a refusal to put into words a hostility tha e had always carefully veiled.  She was in the position of not wanting to go at all, yet wanting still less to decline to do so.

“I shall be glad to go,” she said.

“Fine.  We’ll start about nine, or nine-thirty say.  I’ll drive up in a surrey.”

“And we’ll have lunch for the party put up at the hotel here.  I’ll get some fruit to take along,” said Margaret.

“We’ll make a regular picnic of it,” added Dunke heartily.  “You’ll enjoy eating out of a dinner-pail for once just like one of my miners, Miss Kinney,”

After he had gone Margaret mentioned to Mrs. Collins her feeling concerning him.  “I don’t really like him.  Or rather I don’t give him my full confidence.  He seems pleasant enough, too.”  She laughed a little as she added:  “You know he does me the honor to admire me.”

“Yes, I know that.  I was wondering how you felt about it.”

“How ought one to feel about one of the great mining kings of the West?”

“Has that anything to do with it, my dear?  I mean his being a mining king?” asked Mrs. Collins gently.

Margaret went up to her and kissed her.  “You’re a romantic little thing.  That’s because you probably married a heaven-sent man.  We can’t all be fortunate.”

“We none of us need to marry where we don’t love.”

“Goodness me!  I’m not thinking of marrying Mr. Dunke’s millions.  The only thing is that I don’t have a Croesus to exhibit every day at my chariot wheels.  It’s horrid of course, but I have a natural feminine reluctance to surrendering him all at once.  I don’t object in the least to trampling on him, but somehow I don’t feel ready for his declaration of independence.”

“Oh, if that’s all!” her friend smiled.

“That’s quite all.”

“Perhaps you prefer Texans who come from the Panhandle.”

Mrs. Collins happened to be looking straight at her out of her big brown eyes.  Wherefore she could not help observing the pink glow that deepened in the soft cheeks.

“He hasn’t preferred me much lately.”

Nellie knitted her brow in perplexity.  “I don’t understand.  Steve’s been away, too, nearly all the time.  Something is going on that we don’t know about.”

“Not that I care.  Mr. Neill is welcome to stay away.”

Her new friend shot a swift slant look at her.  “I don’t suppose you trample on him much.”