inspector to the best advantage of the state.  Belding divined that this was only an entering wedge.  The Chases were bent upon driving him out of Forlorn River; but perhaps to serve better their own ends, they were proceeding at leisure.  Belding returned home consumed by rage.  But he controlled it.  For the first time in his life he was afraid of himself.  He had his wife and Nell to think of; and the old law of the West had gone forever.

“Dad, there’s another Rojas round these diggings,” was Nell’s remark, after the greetings were over and the usual questions and answers passed.

Belding’s exclamation was cut short by Nell’s laugh.  She was serious with a kind of amused contempt.

“Mr. Radford Chase!”

“Now Nell, what the—­” roared Belding.

“Hush, Dad!  Don’t swear,” interrupted Nell.  “I only meant to tease you.”

“Humph!  Say, my girl, that name Chase makes me see red.  If you must tease me hit on some other way.  Sabe, senorita?”

“Si, si, Dad.”

“Nell, you may as well tell him and have it over,” said Mrs. Belding, quietly.

“You promised me once, Dad, that you’d not go packing a gun off down there, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied Belding; but he did not answer her smile.

“Will you promise again?” she asked, lightly.  Here was Nell with arch eyes, yet not the old arch eyes, so full of fun and mischief.  Her lips were tremulous; her cheeks seemed less round.

“Yes,” rejoined Belding; and he knew why his voice was a little thick.

“Well, if you weren’t such a good old blind Dad you’d have seen long ago the way Mr. Radford Chase ran round after me.  At first it was only annoying, and I did not want to add to your worries.  But these two weeks you’ve been gone I’ve been more than annoyed.  After that time I struck Mr. Chase with my quirt he made all possible efforts to meet me.  He did meet me wherever I went.  He sent me letters till I got tired of sending them back.

“When you left home on your trips I don’t know that he grew bolder, but he had more opportunity.  I couldn’t stay in the house all the time.  There were mama’s errands and sick people and my Sunday school, and what not.  Mr. Chase waylaid me every time I went out.  If he works any more I don’t know when, unless it’s when I’m asleep.  He followed me until it was less embarassing for me to let him walk with me and talk his head off.  He made love to me.  He begged me to marry him.  I told him I was already in love and engaged to be married.  He said that didn’t make any difference.  Then I called him a fool.

“Next time he saw me he said he must explain.  He meant I was being true to a man who, everybody on the border knew, had been lost in the desert.  That—­that hurt.  Maybe—­maybe it’s true.  Sometimes it seems terribly true.  Since then, of course, I have stayed in the house to avoid being hurt again.