ation of having won in the great game for her
stock.

"It'll be a stockholders' meeting," Rimrock had explained in her ear.
"We represent a majority of the stock. I want to tell you something
big, where nobody else will hear. Come on, let your typewriting slide!"

And Mary Fortune had laughed and run scampering up the stairs and come
down with her gloves and veil, and as the automobile moved off she had
that joyous sensation of something about to happen. They drove out of
town on the one straight road that led to the Gunsight mine and Rimrock
was so busy with the mechanics of his driving that she had a chance to
view the landscape by herself. The white, silty desert, stretching off
to blue mountains, was set as regularly as a vineyard with the waxy,
dark-green creosote bushes; and at uncertain intervals the fluted giant
cactus rose up like sentinels on the plain. All the desert trees that
grew near the town--the iron-woods and palo verdes and cat-claws and
mesquite and salt-bushes--had been uprooted by the Mexicans in their
search for wood; but in every low swale the grass was still green and
the cactus was crowned with gorgeous blossoms.

"Isn't it glorious?" she sighed as she breathed the warm air and
Rimrock looked up from studying his clutches.

"The finest God ever made!" he said as his engine chugged smoothly
along. "By George, I was glad to get home. Ever been in New York?
Well, you know what it's like then; give me Arizona, every time. But
say, that's some town; I stayed at the Waldorf, where the tips are a
dollar a throw. Every time you turn around, or the boy grabs your hat,
you give him a dollar bill. Say, I put up a front--they all thought I
was a millionaire--have you ever been down to the curb market? Oh,
don't you know what that is? Why, it's the place near Wall street
where they sell stock in the middle of the street."

He negotiated a sand wash and nearly stripped a gear as he threw in the
low by mistake.

"You bet, quite a country!" he went on unconcernedly. "I thought I
knew sign language, but those curb brokers have got me beat. I can sit
down with an Indian and by signs and sand-pictures I can generally make
him savvy what I want, but those fellers back there could buy and sell
me while I was asking the price of a horse. I was down there on Broad
street and a man in the crowd jumped up and let out a yell.

"'Sold!' says a feller that's standing next to me, and began to make
si