to set off my manly beauty, so I'm one ahead of Kit who has no one to
garnish him for the feast--and it sure smells like some feast!"

"Venison perhaps a trifle overdone, but we hope it won't disappoint
you," remarked Singleton. "Have this seat, Mr. Rhodes. Captain Pike
and Miss Bernard always chum together, and have their own side."

"Rather," decided Pike, "and that arrangement reaches back beyond the
memory of mere man in this outfit."

"I should say," agreed the girl. "Why, he used to have to toss me over
his head a certain number of times before I would agree to be strapped
in my high chair."

"Yep, and I carpentered the first one, and it wasn't so bad at that!
Now child, if you will pass the lemons, and Kit will pass the decanter
of amber, and someone else will rustle some water, I'll manufacture a
tonic to take the dust out of your throats."

"Everybody works but father," laughed Billie as the Chinaman sliced
and served the venison, and Tia Luz helped supply all plates, and then
took her place quietly at the lower end of the table and poured the
strong fragrant coffee.

Rhodes spoke to her in Spanish, and her eyes lit up with kindly
appreciation.

"Ah, very good!" she commented amicably. "You are not then too much
Americano?"

"Well, yes, I'm about as American as you find them aside from the
Apache and Pima and the rest of the tribes."

"Maybe so, but not gringo," she persisted. "I am scared of the Apache
the same as of El Gavilan, and today my heart was near to stop going
at all when we lose senorita and that black horse--and I say a prayer
for you to San Antonio when I see you come fetch her home again."

"Yes, the black horse is valuable," remarked Billie. "Huh! I might as
well be in a convent for all I get to see of the ranges these late
days. If anyone would grubstake me, I'd break loose with Cap here and
go prospecting for adventures into some of the unnamed ranges."

"You see!" said Tia Luz. "Is it a wonder I am cold with the fear when
she is away from my eyes? I have lived to see the people who go into
the desert for adventure, and whose bare bones are all any man looks
on again! Beside the mountain wells of Carrizal my own cousin's
husband died; he could not climb to the tank in the hill. There they
found him in the moon of Kumaki, which is gray and nothing growing
yet."

"Yes, many's the salt outfit in the West played out before they
reached Tinajas Altas," said Pike. "I've heard curiou