u will have lost the
major portion of your unsavory vocabulary," he suggested. "That will
be worth a herd of cattle."

"It would be worth another herd to see you wake up and show you had
one good fight in you!" she retorted. "Conrad has all of the ranch
outfit locoed but me; that's why he passes on this school notion to
you. He wants me out of sight."

"I should have been more decided, and insisted that you go last year.
Heaven knows you need it badly enough," sighed Singleton, ignoring her
disparaging comment on his own shortcomings. And then as they rode
under the swaying fronds of the palm drive leading to the ranch house
he added, "Those words of your bronco busting friend concerning the
life insurance risk sounded like a threat. I wonder what he meant by
it?"

The telephone bell on the Granados Junction line was ringing when they
entered the patio. Singleton glanced at the clock.

"A night letter probably," he remarked. "Go get your coffee, child,
it's a late hour for breakfast."

Billie obeyed, sulkily seating herself opposite Tia Luz--who was bolt
upright behind the coffee urn, with a mien expressing dignified
disapproval. She inhaled a deep breath for forceful speech, but Billie
was ahead of her.

"So it was you! You were the spy, and sent him after me!"

"_Madre de Dios!_ and why not?" demanded the competent Luz. "You
stealing your own horse at the dawn to go with the old Captain Pike. I
ask of you what kind of a girl is that? Also Mercedes was here last
night tearing her hair because of the girls, her sister's daughters,
stolen away over there in Sonora. Well! is that not enough? That Senor
Kit is also too handsome. I was a fool to send the medicine with you
to Pedro's house. He looked a fine caballero but even a fine caballero
will take a girl when she follows after. _I_ know! And once in Sonora
all trails of a girl are lost. I know that too!"

"You are all crazy, and I never saw him at Pedro's house, never!" said
the girl reaching for her coffee, and then suddenly she began to
laugh. "Did you think, did you make Papa Philip think, that I was
eloping like this?" and she glanced down at her denim riding dress.

"And why not? Did I myself not steal out in a shift and petticoat the
first time I tried to run away with my Andreas? And beyond that not a
thing under God had I on but my coral beads, and the red satin
slippers of my sister Dorotea! She pulled my hair wickedly for those
slippers, and I got