came a time when Buckbee asked shrewd questions and Mrs. Hardesty
took him playfully to task; but he carried it off by wise nods and
smiles and the statement that he knew something good. He was learning
the game and, to cover up his tracks, he joined the mad whirl of social
life. In place of his black sombrero and the high-heeled boots that
had given him his entree in New York he appeared one evening in a top
hat and dress suit, with diamonds glittering down the front of his
shirt. It was a new plunge for him, but Buckbee supplied the tailor
and Mrs. Hardesty launched his debut.

She had almost adopted him, this baffling, "free" woman, and yet she
still had her reserves. She went with him everywhere, but the
recherche suppers were almost a thing of the past. It was the opera
now, and the gayest restaurants, and dinners where they met
distinguished guests; but at the entrance of the St. Cyngia, when the
graven-faced doorman opened the door to let her pass, she had acquired
a way of giving Rimrock her hand without asking if he wouldn't come in.
She played him warily, for his nature was impetuous and might easily
lead him too far; but the time came at last when she found him
recalcitrant and insurgent against her will.

It was at the opera where, amid jewelled women and men in immaculate
attire, they had sat through a long and rather tedious evening during
which Mrs. Hardesty had swept the boxes with her lorgnette. Something
that she saw there had made her nervous and once in the cloakroom she
delayed. Rimrock waited impatiently and when at last she joined him he
forced his way aggressively into the slow-moving crowd and they were
swept on down the broad, marble stairs. Once a part of that throng,
there was no escaping its surge, and yet, as they drifted with the
rest, two great columns of humanity flowing together like twin brooks
that join in a river below, she clutched his arm and started back; but
the crowd swept her inexorably on. Then Rimrock caught her glance--it
was flashing across the foyer to the stream on the other side. He
followed it instinctively and there, tripping gracefully down the
stairway as he had seen her once before at Gunsight, was Mary Fortune,
his girl!

Yes, his girl! Rimrock knew it instantly, the girl he had always
loved. The One Woman he could love forever if fate would but give him
the chance. He started forward, but a hand restrained him; it was Mrs.
Hardesty at his side.