liams, a confirmed bachelor. "It was good luck the
Doc took his wife and kids off when he did. There'll be trouble here when
them elections is held."

"Pick up your skirts and run, Mrs. Van!" suggested Adams. "You may be
cooking for a Mexicano yet."

"If I do he'll know it," was the prompt reply. "I ain't the runnin' kind.
Anybody who's staved off the landlord in New York as many times as I have
ain't going to worry about Mexicans. What I think those young folks ought
to do is to go East for their honeymoon."

"They can't," replied Adams, with a grin. "It wouldn't look sporting for
the Supe to leave his underlings without protection in such a crisis."

"I like Bob Street as well as any young chap I know," said Mrs. Van Zandt,
meditatively, "but I don't know as I'd want him standin' between me and
Angel Gonzales--if Angel was much mad." Angel Gonzales was a local bandit;
a man of many crimes and much history. "But, of course, it wouldn't look
well for the Sup'rintendent to run away."

"Street's not the running kind, either; don't fool yourself about that,"
remarked Scott, quietly.

"He's a good kid. I don't care if he is a rich man's son," said Adams with
sincerity. "If my Dad had money I wouldn't be keeping books, you bet."

"No, son, you'd be playing the ponies up at Juarez," responded Hard,
cheerfully.

"Not ponies, Henry dear, roulette," replied Jimmy, pleasantly. "Me and
Mrs. Van are going to get spliced just as soon as the Ouija board tells
her the winning system."

"It's all very well for you to make fun of things you don't know any more
about than a baby, Jim Adams." Mrs. Van's scorn was intense. "If you'd
read that article I showed you in the magazine about the man that talked
to his mother-in-law by the Ouija----"

"Mother-in-law? Great guns, is that the best the thing can do?"

The reply was cut short by the entrance of the train gang, hot and hungry,
clamoring for food.

"How's Conejo?"

"Sand-storm. Windy as a parson. Say, you fellows eat up all the pie?"
Conversation was suspended while the demands of hunger were satisfied, and
Scott distributed the mail which the late comers had brought.

"From Bob?" Hard looked up from his Boston paper as Scott grunted over his
letter. Scott nodded and then as the others looked their curiosity, he
read the brief note aloud.

"DEAR SCOTTY:

"Have just had a summons from the directors to go East at once; guess
they're uneasy about something they've heard