en to her as the flame the
moth.

Presently the music started. Bonita, in the arms of Tony, floated past
Rutherford, a miracle of supple lightness. A flash of soft eyes darted
at the heir of the A T O ranch. In them was a smile adorable and
provocative.

As soon as the dance was over, Wadley made his way indolently toward
her. He claimed the next waltz.

She had promised it to Tony, the girl said--and the next.

"Tony can't close-herd you," laughed Rutherford. "His title ain't clear
yet--won't be till the priest has said so. You'll dance the second one
with me, Bonita."

"We shall see, _senor_," she mocked.

But the Mexican blood in the girl beat fast. In her soft, liquid eyes
lurked the hunger for sex adventure. And this man was a prince of the
blood--the son of Clint Wadley, the biggest cattleman in West Texas.

There were challenging stars of deviltry in Bonita's eyes when they met
those of Rutherford over the shoulder of Alviro while she danced, but
the color was beating warm through her dark skin. The lift of her round,
brown throat to an indifferent tilt of the chin was mere pretense. The
languorous passion of the South was her inheritance, and excitement
mounted in her while she kept time to the melodious dance.

Alviro was master of ceremonies, and Wadley found his chance while the
young Mexican was of necessity away from Bonita. Rutherford bowed to her
with elaborate mockery.

"Come. Let us walk in the moonlight, sweetheart," he said.

Bonita turned to him with slow grace. The eyes of the man and the woman
met and fought. In hers there was a kind of savage fierceness, in his an
insolent confidence.

"No," she answered.

"Ah! You're afraid of me--afraid to trust yourself with me," he boasted.

She was an untutored child of the desert, and his words were a spur to
her quick pride. She rose at once, her bosom rising and falling fast.
She would never confess that--never.

The girl walked beside him with the fluent grace of youth, beautiful as
a forest fawn. In ten years she would be fat and slovenly like her
Mexican mother, but now she carried her slender body as a queen is
supposed to but does not. Her heel sank into a little patch of mud where
some one had watered a horse. Under the cottonwoods she pulled up her
skirt a trifle and made a _moue_ of disgust at the soiled slipper.

"See what you've done!" Small, even teeth, gleamed in a coquettish smile
from the ripe lips of the little mouth. He u