se."

"Then we'll have supper at once, for we'll have to be on the road
early." He clapped his hands together, and the Mexican woman appeared.
Her master flung out a command or two in her own language.

"--poco tiempo,--" she answered, and disappeared.

In a surprisingly short time the meal was ready, set out on a table
white with Irish linen and winking with cut glass and silver.

"Mr. Leroy does not believe at all in doing when in Rome as the Romans
do," Alice explained to Collins, in answer to his start of amazement.
"He's a regular Aladdin. I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see electric
lights come on next."

"One has to attempt sometimes to blot out the forsaken desert," said
Leroy. "Try this cut of slow elk, Miss Mackenzie. I think you'll like
it."

"Slow elk! What is that?" asked the girl, to make talk.

"Mr. Collins will tell you," smiled Leroy.

She turned to the sheriff, who first apologized, with a smile, to his
host. "Slow elk, Miss Mackenzie, is veal that has been rustled. I expect
Mr. Leroy has pressed a stray calf into our Service."

"I see," she flashed. "Pressed veal."

The outlaw smiled at her ready wit, and took on himself the burden of
further explanation. "And this particular slow elk comes from a ranch on
the Aravaipa owned by Mr. Collins. York shot it up in the hills a day or
two ago."

"Shouldn't have been straying so far from its range," suggested Collins,
with a laugh. "But it's good veal, even if I say it that shouldn't."

"Thank you," burlesqued the bandit gravely, with such an ironic touch of
convention that Alice smiled.

After dinner Leroy produced cigars, and with the permission of Miss
Mackenzie the two men smoked while the conversation ran on a topic as
impersonal as literature. A criticism of novels and plays written to
illustrate the frontier was the line into which the discussion fell, and
the girl from the city, listening with a vivid interest, was pleased to
find that these two real men talked with point and a sense of dexterous
turns. She felt a sort of proud proprietorship in their power, and
wished that some of the tailors' models she had met in society, who held
so good a conceit of themselves, might come under the spell of their
strong, tolerant virility. Whatever the difference between them, it
might be truly said of both that they had lived at first hand and come
in touch closely with all the elemental realities. One of them was
a romantic villain and the oth