nooping
into my business. Oh, I've cursed myself more than once for letting him
tell you, but I never loved a woman before, Pearl, and I couldn't take
the chances, honest I couldn't. I hadn't the nerve." There was a
passionate sincerity in his voice.

"They've been telling me you've loved many a woman." Her eyes gloomed
and she slashed her skirt savagely with the riding crop she held.

"You know," he whispered, "you know. I've been a fool. There have been
many others, Pearl, I ain't going to deceive you, but--there's never
been but one."

She softened and smiled at him, then her face darkened again. "But
there's one that stands in the way--yet," she said gloomily.

"In the way? What do you mean?" uncomprehendingly.

"Why, that woman up in Colina? Don't she stand between you and me, now,
for a while?"

"Not much, she don't," emphatically, "not her!"

A light flared in Pearl's eyes. "I knew Pop and Bob were up to some of
their tricks! They been doing their best to ram it home that she'll die
before she lets you get a divorce."

"You bet she will," muttered Hanson, with concentrated bitterness, and
stifled some maledictions under his breath. "I've tried every way,
turned every trick known to sharp lawyers for the last six years, trying
to get free; but she's got money, you see, and she can keep her eye on
me, so, in one way or another, she's balked me every time."

Pearl threw herself from him and looked at him with wild eyes. "Then how
are you going to get free now?" she cried. "What are your plans? Why is
she going to come around now, if she never has before?"

"She ain't, honey, the devil take her!" He caught her back in his arms
and held her as if he would never release her. "But what difference does
that make to us?" he pleaded ardently. "We're going to let the whole lot
of them go hang and live our lives as we choose."

"Then Pop and Bob were right; and I never believed them, not for a
moment. I thought you were too smart to stay caught in a trap like that.
I thought you were so quick and keen to plan and were so full of ideas
that you could get around any situation." Again she flung herself away
from him and, with her face turned from him, stood looking out over the
desert.

He bent toward her and, throwing his arms about her, again endeavored to
draw her back into his embrace, but she resisted.

"Pearl," he cried roughly, "what do you mean? You don't mean to say that
you got any foolish ideas about