would then merrily jog the ten miles to Cactus, where on the morrow
they would array themselves, subjugate man, do homage to Easter, and
cause jealous agitation among the lilies of the field.

Tonia sat on the steps of the Espinosa ranch house flicking gloomily
with a quirt at a tuft of curly mesquite. She displayed a frown and a
contumelious lip, and endeavored to radiate an aura of disagreeableness
and tragedy.

"I hate railroads," she announced positively. "And men. Men pretend
to run them. Can you give any excuse why a trestle should burn? Ida
Bennet's hat is to be trimmed with violets. I shall not go one step
toward Cactus without a new hat. If I were a man I would get one."

Two men listened uneasily to this disparagement of their kind. One was
Wells Pearson, foreman of the Mucho Calor cattle ranch. The other was
Thompson Burrows, the prosperous sheepman from the Quintana Valley.
Both thought Tonia Weaver adorable, especially when she railed at
railroads and menaced men. Either would have given up his epidermis to
make for her an Easter hat more cheerfully than the ostrich gives up
his tip or the aigrette lays down its life. Neither possessed the
ingenuity to conceive a means of supplying the sad deficiency against
the coming Sabbath. Pearson's deep brown face and sunburned light hair
gave him the appearance of a schoolboy seized by one of youth's
profound and insolvable melancholies. Tonia's plight grieved him
through and through. Thompson Burrows was the more skilled and
pliable. He hailed from somewhere in the East originally; and he wore
neckties and shoes, and was made dumb by woman's presence.

"The big water-hole on Sandy Creek," said Pearson, scarcely hoping to
make a hit, "was filled up by that last rain."

"Oh! Was it?" said Tonia sharply. "Thank you for the information. I
suppose a new hat is nothing to you, Mr. Pearson. I suppose you think
a woman ought to wear an old Stetson five years without a change, as
you do. If your old water-hole could have put out the fire on that
trestle you might have some reason to talk about it."

"I am deeply sorry," said Burrows, warned by Pearson's fate, "that you
failed to receive your hat, Miss Weaver--deeply sorry, indeed. If there
was anything I could do--"

"Don't bother," interrupted Tonia, with sweet sarcasm. "If there was
anything you could do, you'd be doing it, of course. There isn't."

Tonia paused. A sudden sparkle of hope had