and she promised on her part not to say anything about his "stalking
a petticoat on the clothesline," and then shyly closed the door and
regained her room. HE must have got away by this time, or have been
discovered; she believed they would not open the barn door until the
return of the posse.

She was right. It was near daybreak when they returned, and, again
crouching low beside her window, she heard, with a fierce joy, the
sudden outcry, the oaths, the wrangling voices, the summoning of her
father to the front door, and then the tumultuous sweeping away again of
the whole posse, and a blessed silence falling over the rancho. And then
Lanty went quietly to bed, and slept like a three-year child!

Perhaps that was the reason why she was able at breakfast to listen with
lazy and even rosy indifference to the startling events of the night; to
the sneers of the farm hands at the posse who had overlooked the knife
when they searched their prisoner, as well as the stupidity of the
corral guard who had never heard him make a hole "the size of a house"
in the barn side! Once she glanced demurely at Silas Briggs--the farm
hand and the poor fellow felt consoled in his shame at the remembrance
of their confidences.

But Lanty's tranquillity was not destined to last long. There was again
the irruption of exciting news from the highroad; the Mexican leader had
been recaptured, and was now safely lodged in Brownsville jail! Those
who were previously loud in their praises of the successful horse-thief
who had baffled the vigilance of his pursuers were now equally keen
in their admiration of the new San Francisco deputy who, in turn, had
outwitted the whole gang. It was HE who was fertile in expedients; HE
who had studied the whole country, and even risked his life among the
gang, and HE who had again closed the meshes of the net around the
escaped outlaw. He was already returning by way of the rancho, and might
stop there a moment,--so that they could all see the hero. Such was the
power of success on the country-side! Outwardly indifferent, inwardly
bitter, Lanty turned away. She should not grace his triumph, if she kept
in her room all day! And when there was a clatter of hoofs on the road
again, Lanty slipped upstairs.

But in a few moments she was summoned. Captain Lance Wetherby, Assistant
Chief of Police of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff and ex-U. S. scout,
had requested to see Miss Foster a few moments alone. Lanty knew wha