little ball of provender within the whittler's range.

"O Eddie!" she cried.

The man looked up, and was at once electrified into action. He sprang
to his feet and whipped off his sombrero. A broad smile illumined his
freckled face.

"Yes, miss," he answered. "What can I do for you?"

"Saddle a pony for me, Eddie," she explained. "I want to take a little
ride."

"Sure!" he assured her cheerily. "Have it ready in a jiffy," and away
he went, uncoiling his riata, toward the little group of saddle ponies
which stood in the corral against necessity for instant use.

In a couple of minutes he came back leading one, which he tied to the
corral bars.

"But I can't ride that horse," exclaimed the girl. "He bucks."

"Sure," said Eddie. "I'm a-goin' to ride him."

"Oh, are you going somewhere?" she asked.

"I'm goin' with you, miss," announced Eddie, sheepishly.

"But I didn't ask you, Eddie, and I don't want you--today," she urged.

"Sorry, miss," he threw back over his shoulder as he walked back to rope
a second pony; "but them's orders. You're not to be allowed to ride no
place without a escort. 'Twouldn't be safe neither, miss," he almost
pleaded, "an' I won't hinder you none. I'll ride behind far enough to be
there ef I'm needed."

Directly he came back with another pony, a sad-eyed, gentle-appearing
little beast, and commenced saddling and bridling the two.

"Will you promise," she asked, after watching him in silence for a time,
"that you will tell no one where I go or whom I see?"

"Cross my heart hope to die," he assured her.

"All right, Eddie, then I'll let you come with me, and you can ride
beside me, instead of behind."

Across the flat they rode, following the windings of the river road,
one mile, two, five, ten. Eddie had long since been wondering what the
purpose of so steady a pace could be. This was no pleasure ride which
took the boss's daughter--"heifer," Eddie would have called her--ten
miles up river at a hard trot. Eddie was worried, too. They had passed
the danger line, and were well within the stamping ground of Pesita and
his retainers. Here each little adobe dwelling, and they were scattered
at intervals of a mile or more along the river, contained a rabid
partisan of Pesita, or it contained no one--Pesita had seen to this
latter condition personally.

At last the young lady drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut.
Eddie gasped. It was Jose's, and Jose was a notorious scoundr