y to stock their pantry from
the United States in that fashion.

They rode into Los Robles in the first gray stirrings of dawn, long
before anybody in the little town was afoot.

"Where are you going to hide? First place they'll look for you will be
at home," suggested Yeager.

"There's a haystack out in the Lunar pastures. I'll lay low there. Tell
Chad when you see him, and have Ruth fix me up something to eat."

They parted, each of them to get in what sleep was possible before day.
When Steve was awakened by the sound of some one stirring in the next
room it seemed as though he had been in bed only a few minutes.

He walked up to the hotel before breakfast and saw Harrison as the actor
was going into the dining-room. The big man stopped in his tracks and
shot out a heavy jaw at him.

"Thought you was giving our eyes a rest for a while," he growled.

Yeager declined to exchange compliments with him. "There's a friend of
yours on the haystack in the pasture. He wants to see you soon as it's
convenient."

The eyes of the pugilist narrowed. "Put a name to him."

"Phil Seymour."

"What's he doing here?" demanded Harrison blackly.

"Perhaps you'd better ask him." Steve turned on his heel and walked back
to his boarding-house.

His arrival at the breakfast table was greeted with a chorus of
exclamations. What was he doing back so soon? Had he got homesick? Had
he run out of money already?

He let them worm out of him that he had ridden away and forgotten his
purse and that upon discovering this he had come back for the supplies
of war. They joked him unmercifully, even Daisy,--who was manifestly
incredulous about his explanation,--and he accepted their hilarious
repartee with the proper amount of sheepish resentment.

After the meal was over he lingered to see Ruth, who had just sat down
to eat.

"Can I see you alone, Miss Ruth?"

She flashed a quick look at him, doubtful and apprehensive. "In the
pergola, almost right away."

The girl reached the vine-draped entrance of the pergola shortly after
Yeager. Manifestly her fears had been growing in the interval since he
had left her.

"What is it?" And swift on the heels of that, "Is it about Phil?"

"Yes."

"He's in trouble ... again?" she breathed.

He nodded assent. "The boy's out in the pasture. He wants you to send
him breakfast."

The dread that was always lying banked in the hearts of herself and her
mother found voice. "What has he done now