she was at the telephone. Mackenzie was at the
other end of the line.

"Oh, Uncle Mac." She had called him uncle ever since she could remember.
"What is it they are saying about dad? Tell me it isn't true," she
begged.

"A pack of lees, lassie." His Scotch idiom and accent had succumbed to
thirty years on the plains, but when he became excited it rose triumphant
through the acquired speech of the Southwest.

"Then is he there--in Saguache, I mean."

"No-o. He's not in town."

"Where is he?"

"Hoots! He'll just have gone somewhere on business."

He did not bluff well. Through the hearty assurance she pierced to the
note of trouble in his voice.

"You're hiding something from me, Uncle Mac. I won't have it. You tell me
the truth--the whole truth."

In three sentences he sketched it for her, and when he had finished he
knew by the sound of her voice that she was greatly frightened.

"Something has happened to him. I'm coming to town."

"If you feel you'd rather. Take the stage in to-morrow."

"No. I'm coming to-night. I'll bring Bob. Save us two rooms at the
hotel."

"Better wait till to-morrow. Forty miles is a long ride, lass."

"No, I can't wait. Have Curly Flandrau come to the Del Mar if he's in
town--and Dick Maloney, too. That's all. Good-by."

She turned to her cousin, who was standing big-eyed at her elbow.

"What is it, Kate? Has anything happened to Uncle Luck?"

She swallowed a lump in her throat. "Dad's gone, Bob. Nobody knows where.
They say--the liars--that he robbed the W. & S. Express Company."

Suddenly her face went down into her forearm on the table and sobs began
to rack her body. The boy, staggered at this preposterous charge, could
only lay his hand on her shoulder and beg her not to cry.

"It'll be all right, Kate. Wait till Uncle Luck comes back. He'll make 'em
sick for talking about him."

"But suppose he--suppose he----" She dared not complete what was in her
mind, that perhaps he had been ambushed by some of his enemies and
killed.

"You bet they'll drop into a hole and pull it in after them when Uncle
Luck shows up," the boy bragged with supreme confidence.

His cousin nodded, choking down her sobs. "Of course. It--it'll come out
all right--as soon as he finds out what they're saying. Saddle two horses
right away, Bob."

"Sure. We'll soon find where he is, I bet you."

The setting sun found their journey less than half done. The brilliant
rainbow afterglow of sunse