ith that sweet voice the
harassed correspondent.

"It might be a love letter from the pains you take with it. Would you
like me to come and help you with it?" the sewer railed merrily.

"I ain't used to letter writing much," apologized the scribe, wiping his
bedewed brow, which had suddenly gone a shade more flushed.

"Apparently not. I expect, from the time you give it, the result will be
a literary classic."

"Don't you disturb me, Curly, or I'll never get done," implored the
tortured ranger.

"You're doing well. You've only been an hour and a half on six lines,"
the tormentor mocked.

Womanlike, she was quite at her ease, since he was very far indeed from
being at his. Yet she had a problem of her own she was trying to decide.

Had he discovered, after all, that she was not a boy, and had
his reasons--the ones he was trying to tell in that disturbing
letter--anything to do with that discovery? Such a theory accounted
for several things she had noticed in him of late. There was an added
respect in his manner for her. He never now invaded the room recognized
as hers without a specific invitation, nor did he seem any longer to
chafe at the little personal marks of fastidiousness that had at first
appeared to annoy him. To be sure, he ordered her about, just as he had
been in the habit of doing at first. But it was conceivable that this
might be a generous blind to cover up his knowledge of her sex.

"How do you spell guessed--one s or two?" he presently asked, out of the
throes of composition.

She spelled it, and added demurely: "Adore has only one d"

Bucky laid down his pen and pretended to glare at him. "You young
rascal, what do you mean by bothering me like that? Act like that, you
young imp, and you'll never grow up to be a gentleman."

Their glances caught and held, the minds of each of them busy over that
last prediction of his. For one long instant masks were off and both
were trying to find an answer to a question in the eyes opposite. Then
voluntarily each gaze released the other in a confusion of sweet shame.
For the beating of a lash, soul had looked into naked soul, all disguise
stripped from them. She knew that he knew. Yet in that instant when his
secret was surprised from him another secret, sweeter than the morning
song of birds, sang its way into both their hearts.

CHAPTER 10. THE HOLD-UP OF THE M. C. P. FLYER

Agua Negra is twelve miles from Chihuahua as the crow flies, but if on