They don't think
it's safe to try and get him out of the country now." Then, having
delivered herself of her burden of important news, she suffered one of
her quick revulsions of fright, and clapped her hand to her mouth and
turned white.

"Oh, Lordy!" she cried. "Lordy! Ain't I the leaky vessel, though! Oh,
say, Mr. Hanson," she clutched his arm like a terrified child, "promise
me you won't give me away."

"Sure," soothingly. "Why, Mrs. Gallito, you got to believe that
everything that you tell me just goes in one ear and out of the other.
But look here, just to take your mind off of this, I wish you'd do me a
little favor."

"'Deed I will," she fervently assured him. "What is it?"

"Why, Miss Pearl and I are going riding to-morrow morning, and I
particularly want to talk business to her. You know how anxious I am to
get her signed up. Well, I wish you'd manage to keep Hughie from butting
in as usual?"

"Is that all?" she cried. "'Course I'll keep Hughie at home. I didn't
realize how he was tagging round after you and Pearl. I want him to help
me, anyway. We got to patch up my chicken house and yard so's to keep
the coyotes out some way or other."

True to her word, she kept Hugh so busily employed the next morning that
to Hanson's infinite relief he and Pearl were able to ride off alone.

"I'm going to take you to a palm grove to-day," said Pearl, as they
started off.

She was in the gayest of humors, and for a time she bantered and
coquetted with him with an unrestrained and childlike enjoyment in her
mood, taking his ardent lovemaking as a matter of course; but,
gradually, as they rode, she became more quiet and fell into silence,
the Sphynx expression appearing on her face.

Suddenly she leaned forward in her saddle and looked at him. There was a
hint of laughter in her glance, and yet behind it a certain serious
scrutiny.

"I'm wondering a lot about you, do you know it?" she drawled softly.

"Turn about's fair play, then, honey," he answered. "You keep me
guessing all the time. But what is it now?"

She did not answer him immediately, but rode on in silence as if
cogitating whether or no she would reply to his question, and in some
way he received the impression that it was not the first time she had
mentally debated the matter. But finally she decided to speak, and again
she turned in her saddle and regarded him with that piercing scrutiny
which reminded him uncomfortably of her father.

"Say," s