o
make his appeal to the jury she remained in her office in Gunsight--and
then came the telegram: "Acquitted!"

He had been right then, after all; he knew his own people! But then,
there were other things, too. Mary Fortune was not so innocent that
she had not noticed the strong interest which the newspapers had taken
in his case. They had hailed him, in those last days, the first
citizen of Geronimo County; and first citizens, as we know, are seldom
hanged. The wonderful development of the Tecolote Mining Company had
been heralded, month after month; and the name Rimrock Jones was always
spoken with a reverence never given to criminals. He was the man with
the vision, the big man of a big country, the man whose touch brought
forth gold. And now he had won; his man-killing had been justified;
and he was coming back--to see her.

She knew it. She even knew what he would hasten to say the first
moment he found her alone. He was simple, in those matters; which made
it all the more necessary to have the answer thought out in advance.
But was life as simple as he insisted upon making it? Was every one
either good or bad, and everything right or wrong? She doubted it, and
the answer was somewhere in there. That he was a great man, she
agreed. In his crude, forceful way he had succeeded where most men
would have failed; but was he not, after all, a great, thoughtless
giant who went fighting his way through life, snatching up what he
wanted most? And because his eyes were upon her, because she had come
in his way, was that any reason why the traditions of her life should
fall down and give way to his?

Even when the answer is "no" that is not any reason why a woman should
not appear at her best. Mary Fortune met the train in an afternoon
dress that had made an enemy of every woman in town. She had a friend
in New York who picked them out for her, since her salary had become
what it was. A great crowd was present--the whole populace of Gunsight
was waiting to see their hero come home--and as the train rolled in and
Rimrock dropped off, in the excitement she found tears in her eyes.
But then, that was nothing; Woo Chong, the restaurant Chinaman, was
weeping all over the place; and Old Hassayamp Hicks, hobbling off
through the crowd, wiped his eyes and sobbed, unashamed. And then
Rimrock seized her by both her hands and made her walk with him back to
the hotel!

It was no time for discipline, that night; Rimr