a gulf
between him and youth over which he could not build a bridge even with
yellow gloves to protect his hands. And the sight of his torment
coming to pester him with her elfin pranks--coming to plunder his
strawberry vines like a mischievous schoolboy--roused all his anger.

"I told you to keep away from here," said Dry Valley. "Go back to your
home."

Panchita moved slowly toward him.

Dry Valley cracked his whip.

"Go back home," said Dry Valley, savagely, "and play theatricals some
more. You'd make a fine man. You've made a fine one of me."

She came a step nearer, silent, and with that strange, defiant, steady
shine in her eyes that had always puzzled him. Now it stirred his
wrath.

His whiplash whistled through the air. He saw a red streak suddenly
come out through her white dress above her knee where it had struck.

Without flinching and with the same unchanging dark glow in her eyes,
Panchita came steadily toward him through the strawberry vines. Dry
Valley's trembling hand released his whip handle. When within a yard
of him Panchita stretched out her arms.

"God, kid!" stammered Dry Valley, "do you mean--?"

But the seasons are versatile; and it may have been Springtime, after
all, instead of Indian Summer, that struck Dry Valley Johnson.

XVII

CHRISTMAS BY INJUNCTION

Cherokee was the civic father of Yellowhammer. Yellowhammer was a new
mining town constructed mainly of canvas and undressed pine. Cherokee
was a prospector. One day while his burro was eating quartz and pine
burrs Cherokee turned up with his pick a nugget, weighing thirty
ounces. He staked his claim and then, being a man of breadth and
hospitality, sent out invitations to his friends in three States to
drop in and share his luck.

Not one of the invited guests sent regrets. They rolled in from the
Gila country, from Salt River, from the Pecos, from Albuquerque and
Phoenix and Santa Fe, and from the camps intervening.

When a thousand citizens had arrived and taken up claims they named
the town Yellowhammer, appointed a vigilance committee, and presented
Cherokee with a watch-chain made of nuggets.

Three hours after the presentation ceremonies Cherokee's claim played
out. He had located a pocket instead of a vein. He abandoned it and
staked others one by one. Luck had kissed her hand to him. Never
afterward did he turn up enough dust in Yellowhammer to pay his bar
bill. But his thousand invited guests were mostly pros