chatted lightly, Engle gradually withdrawing from the
conversation and secretly watching the girl keenly, studying her play
of expression, seeking, according to his habit, to make his guarded
estimate of a new factor in his household. From Virginia's face his
eyes went swiftly now and then to his daughter's, animated in her
tete-a-tete with the sheriff. Once, when Virginia turned unexpectedly,
she caught the hint of a troubled frown in his eyes.

Broad double doors in the west wall of the living-room gave entrance to
the patio. The doors were open now to the slowly freshening night air,
and from where she sat Virginia Page had a glimpse of a charming court,
an orange-tree heavy with fruit and blossom, red and yellow roses, a
sleeping fountain whose still water reflected star-shine and the lamp
in its niche under a grape-vine arbor. When Norton and Florence Engle
strolled out into the inviting patio Engle, breaking his silence,
leaned forward and dominated the conversation.

Virginia had been doing the major part of the talking, answering
questions about Mrs. Engle's girlhood home, telling something of
herself. Now John Engle, reminding his wife that their guest must be
consumed with curiosity about her new environment, sought to interest
her in this and that, in and about San Juan.

"There was a killing this afternoon," he admitted quietly. "No doubt
you know of it and have been shocked by it, and perhaps on account of
it have a little misjudged San Juan. We are not all cutthroats here,
by any manner of means; I think I might almost say that the rough
element is in the minority. We are in a state of transition, like all
other frontier settlements. The railroad, though it doesn't come
closer than the little tank station where you took the stage this
morning, has touched our lives out here. A railroad brings civilizing
influences; but the first thing it does is to induct a surging tide of
forces contending against law and order. Pioneers," and he smiled his
slow, grave, tolerant smile, "are as often as not tumultuous-blooded
and self-sufficient, and prone to kick over the established traces.
We've got that class to deal with . . . and that boy, Rod Norton, with
his job cut out for him, is getting results. He's the biggest man
right now, not only in the country, but in this end of the state."

Continuing he told her something of the sheriff. Young Norton, having
returned from college some three years before