ne--he fought them?" demanded Mr.
Gale, his voice stronger.

"Dick mopped up the floor with the whole outfit!"

"He rescued a Spanish girl, went into the desert without food, weapons,
anything but his hands? Richard Gale, whose hands were always useless?"

Belding nodded with a grin.

"He's a ranger now--riding, fighting, sleeping on the sand, preparing
his own food?"

"Well, I should smile," rejoined Belding.

"He cares for his horse, with his own hands?" This query seemed to be
the climax of Mr. Gale's strange hunger for truth. He had raised his
head a little higher, and his eye was brighter.

Mention of a horse fired Belding's blood.

"Does Dick Gale care for his horse? Say, there are not many men as
well loved as that white horse of Dick's. Blanco Sol he is, Mr. Gale.
That's Mex for White Sun. Wait till you see Blanco Sol! Bar one, the
whitest, biggest, strongest, fastest, grandest horse in the Southwest!"

"So he loves a horse! I shall not know my own son.... Mr. Belding, you
say Richard works for you. May I ask, at what salary?"

"He gets forty dollars, board and outfit," replied Belding, proudly.

"Forty dollars?" echoed the father. "By the day or week?"

"The month, of course," said Belding, somewhat taken aback.

"Forty dollars a month for a young man who spent five hundred in the
same time when he was at college, and who ran it into thousands when he
got out!"

Mr. Gale laughed for the first time, and it was the laugh of a man who
wanted to believe what he heard yet scarcely dared to do it.

"What does he do with so much money--money earned by peril, toil,
sweat, and blood? Forty dollars a month!"

"He saves it," replied Belding.

Evidently this was too much for Dick Gale's father, and he gazed at his
wife in sheer speechless astonishment. Dick's sister clapped her hands
like a little child.

Belding saw that the moment was propitious.

"Sure he saves it. Dick's engaged to marry Nell here. My
stepdaughter, Nell Burton."

"Oh-h, Dad!" faltered Nell; and she rose, white as her dress.

How strange it was to see Dick's mother and sister rise, also, and turn
to Nell with dark, proud, searching eyes. Belding vaguely realized
some blunder he had made. Nell's white, appealing face gave him a
pang. What had he done? Surely this family of Dick's ought to know
his relation to Nell. There was a silence that positively made Belding
nervous.

Then Elsie Gale stepped close to Ne