looking for hazardous adventure.

"Whad you doing here?" demanded Gopher, bristling up to Elliot.

The young man watched a smoke wreath float ceilingward before he turned
his mild gaze on the chief of police.

"I'm smoking."

"Don't you know we just got in from hunting you--two posses of us been
out all night?" Gopher glared savagely at the smoker.

Gordon looked distressed. "That's too bad. There's a telephone in my
room, too. Why didn't you call up? I've been there all night."

"The deuce you have," exploded Jones. "And us combing the hills for you.
Young man, you're mighty smart. But I want to tell you that you'll pay
for this."

"Did you want me for anything in particular--or just to get up a poker
game?" asked Elliot suavely.

The leader of the posse gave himself to a job of scientific profanity.
He was spurred on to outdo himself because he had heard a titter or
two behind him. When he had finished, he formed a procession. He, with
Elliot hand-cuffed beside him, was at the head of it. It marched to the
jail.

CHAPTER XIX

SHEBA DOES NOT THINK SO

The fingers of Sheba were busy with the embroidery upon which she
worked, but her thoughts were full of the man who lay asleep on the
lounge. His strong body lay at ease, relaxed.

Already health was flowing back into his veins. Beneath the tan of the
lean, muscular cheeks a warmer color was beginning to creep. Soon he
would be about again, vigorous and forceful, striding over obstacles to
the goal he had set himself.

Just now she was the chief goal of his desire. Sheba did not deceive
herself into thinking that he had for a moment accepted her dismissal
of him.

He still meant to marry her, and he had told her so in characteristic
way the day after their break.

Sheba had sent him a check for the amount he had paid her and had
refused to see him or anybody else.

Shamed and humiliated, she had kept to her room. The check had come back
to her by mail.

Across the face of it he had written in his strong handwriting:--

I don't welsh on my bets. You can't give to me what is not mine.

Do not think for an instant that I shall not marry you.

Watching him now, she wondered what manner of man he was. There had
been a day or two when she had thought she understood him. Then she had
learned, from the story of Meteetse, how far his world of thought was
from hers. That which to her had put a gulf between them was to him only
an incident.