actuated by a cowboy motive beyond the power of Helen to divine.

"Bo Rayner," drawled Las Vegas, "thet blue mustang will be yours, an'
you can ride him--when you're MRS. TOM CARMICHAEL!"

Never had he spoken a softer, more drawling speech, nor gazed at Bo
more mildly. Roy seemed thunderstruck. Helen endeavored heroically to
restrain her delicious, bursting glee. Bo's wide eyes stared at her
lover--darkened--dilated. Suddenly she left the mustang to confront the
cowboy where he lounged on the porch steps.

"Do you mean that?" she cried.

"Shore do."

"Bah! It's only a magnificent bluff," she retorted. "You're only in fun.
It's your--your darned nerve!"

"Why, Bo," began Las Vegas, reproachfully. "You shore know I'm not the
four-flusher kind. Never got away with a bluff in my life! An' I'm jest
in daid earnest aboot this heah."

All the same, signs were not wanting in his mobile face that he was
almost unable to restrain his mirth.

Helen realized then that Bo saw through the cowboy--that the ultimatum
was only one of his tricks.

"It IS a bluff and I CALL you!" declared Bo, ringingly.

Las Vegas suddenly awoke to consequences. He essayed to speak, but she
was so wonderful then, so white and blazing-eyed, that he was stricken
mute.

"I'll ride Blue-Bo this afternoon," deliberately stated the girl.

Las Vegas had wit enough to grasp her meaning, and he seemed about to
collapse.

"Very well, you can make me Mrs. Tom Carmichael to-day--this
morning--just before dinner.... Go get a preacher to marry us--and
make yourself look a more presentable bridegroom--UNLESS IT WAS ONLY A
BLUFF!"

Her imperiousness changed as the tremendous portent of her words seemed
to make Las Vegas a blank, stone image of a man. With a wild-rose color
suffusing her face, she swiftly bent over him, kissed him, and flashed
away into the house. Her laugh pealed back, and it thrilled Helen, so
deep and strange was it for the wilful sister, so wild and merry and
full of joy.

It was then that Roy Beeman recovered from his paralysis, to let out
such a roar of mirth as to frighten the horses. Helen was laughing, and
crying, too, but laughing mostly. Las Vegas Carmichael was a sight for
the gods to behold. Bo's kiss had unclamped what had bound him. The
sudden truth, undeniable, insupportable, glorious, made him a madman.

"Bluff--she called me--ride Blue-Bo saf'ternoon!" he raved,
reaching wildly for Helen. "Mrs.--Tom--Carmichael--be