was for going to the
kitchen door, a suggestion which the Duke scorned. He didn't want to
meet that girl at a kitchen door, even her own kitchen door. For that he
was about to meet her, there was no doubt in him that moment.

He was not in a state of trembling eagerness, but of calm expectation,
as a man might be justified in who had made his preparations and felt
the outcome sure. He even smiled as he pictured her surprise, like a man
returning home unexpectedly, but to a welcome of which he held no doubt.

Taterleg remained mounted while Lambert went to the door. It was a
rather inhospitable appearing door of solid oak, heavy and dark. There
was a narrow pane of beveled glass set into it near the top, beneath it
a knocker that must have been hammered by a hand in some far land
centuries before the house on the mesa was planned.

A negro woman, rheumatic, old, came to the door. Miss Philbrook was at
the barn, she said. What did they want of her? Were they looking for
work? To these questions Lambert made no reply. As he turned back to
his horse the old serving woman came to the porch, leaving the door
swinging wide, giving a view into the hall, which was furnished with a
profusion and luxuriance that Taterleg never had seen before.

The old woman watched the Duke keenly as he swung into the saddle in the
suppleness of his youthful grace. She shaded her eyes against the sun,
looking after him still as he rode with his companion toward the barn.

Chickens were making the barnyard lots comfortable with their noise,
some dairy cows of a breed alien to that range waited in a lot to be
turned out to the day's grazing; a burro put its big-eared head round
the corner of a shed, eying the strangers with the alert curiosity of a
nino of his native land. But the lady of the ranch was not in sight nor
sound.

Lambert drew up at the gate cutting the employees' quarters from the
barnyard, and sat looking things over. Here was a peace and security, an
atmosphere of contentment and comfort, entirely lacking in the
surroundings of the house. The buildings were all of far better class
than were to be found on the ranches of that country; even the bunkhouse
a house, in fact, and not a shed-roofed shack.

"I wonder where she's at?" said Taterleg, leaning and peering. "I don't
see her around here nowheres."

"I'll go down to the bunkhouse and see if there's anybody around,"
Lambert said, for he had a notion, somehow, that he ought