ment. Then for the second
time he astonished Penelope by laughing. He dropped back on his pillow.

"Pen! Pen! a lawyer could have given no better answer than that! I'm not
worrying, Pen. You've stuck by me all these years. I know I'm safe to
the end."

Penelope's scorn changed to pity. "I've been horrid today. You will have
to forgive me, Sara. You must remember that you are no mild June day to
live with!"

Sara gave a short nod. "Give me my pipe, Pen, and then jolly Mrs. Flynn
up."

Mrs. Flynn, whose curiosity was only equaled by her kindness of heart,
was only too willing to take care of Sara. Had a caged South African
lion been placed in her care she would have had the same thrill at the
thought of caring for it as at watching Sara. Great stories of Sara's
marvelous temper had gone about the camp. Any extra steps he caused Mrs.
Flynn she felt would be more than compensated for in the delectable
gossip she would pick.

Pen did not ask Jim to take her down to the Ames place. She arranged to
go down with Bill Evans, who kept a hog ranch near the dam. Bill fed his
hogs on the camp table scrapings and filled in odd moments "renting out"
his automobile. This was a sad-looking vehicle of an early vintage, held
together by binding wire and bits of sheet iron. But Bill got twenty
miles an hour out of the machine and took better care of it than he did
of his wife.

The Ames ranch lay in the desert valley below the dam. Two hours after
they left the dam, Bill drew up before the Ames door with a rattle and a
series of staccato explosions that would have done credit to an
approaching army.

The trip down had been a noisy rush through multicolored ranges out onto
a desert floor of brilliant yellow dotted with giant cactus, that
austere sentinel of the desolate plains. Long before they left the
mountain road Bill pointed out to Penelope the green spot in the desert
that was the Ames ranch. The road, leaving the desert, ran along an
irrigating ditch fringed with cotton woods. Beyond the road lay acre
after acre of alfalfa, its peculiar living green melting far beyond in
the shimmering of olive orchard and orange grove.

The ranch house was of yellow gray adobe, long and low, with a red roof.
Oscar had made no attempt at beauty when he had added, year after year,
room on room to the original box he had built for Jane. But he
unknowingly had kept close to real art. He had built of the material of
the country in the manner b