than a break, he says. He asked me
to tell you and wishes you'd go up there to advise him. I'm to send
up a man to help him. But he wants you, too."

"Why should I waste my time on such a fool's errand, eh? I knew there
was a leak somewhere and am glad he's found it. There's been no water
in the ditches these three days--more, ten, maybe--and the oranges are
falling. Send up that idler, Joe; and, by the way, how's Pedro?"

It was the blue eyes now which turned keen and searching, and under their
gaze Antonio's were averted toward some distant point in the landscape,
though the contemptuous smile remained upon his lips.

"That was a fool's errand, too, Senor Bernal, and I did so want to be
at home this morning. Pedro was never livelier. Whoever told you he was
ill was quite mistaken."

Antonio gave a short, derisive laugh, dug his spurs into Nero's
sides and loped away. A picturesque, noticeable figure in his quaint,
half-Spanish dress and his silver-decorated sombrero, bestriding the
heavy Mexican saddle upon his powerful horse.

"Vain as a peacock," was his fellow-ranchmen's opinion of their
"boss," though had his affectations been all his shortcomings these
had not lessened their liking for him.

Lady Jess looked after him for a moment, her face still sober and
perplexed.

"I ought to be at home, helping mother, this minute; but I'm going
first to the corral to speak a word of comfort to poor Beppo, and see
how big a plucking there was. If it was a good yield that will be so
much the better news to tell my dear, and this certainly is the finest
plume we ever got. Good! There are some of the boys over there, too,
and I'll save time by getting one of them to go up the canyon to John.
_Hola!_"

Her soliloquy ended in the gay little Spanish salute, and this was
now instantly answered by a hearty shout of welcome from a group of
rough-garbed men, taking a moment's rest in the shade of the old adobe
packinghouse.

As lightly as if she had not already walked a long distance, the girl
ran to her friends, to be at once caught up by a pair of strong arms and
gently placed upon a cushion in the box of an empty wagon.

"But this was your place, Joe Dean. I saw you get up from it."

"It's yours now, Lady Jess. You do me proud. What's the good word?
How's old Pedro?"

"Well just plain, every day well. Never been sick a minute. Had all
that climb for nothing; or, maybe, not quite for nothing, because I met
a strange