n the nature of a ceremonial."

"Um-m! There's a ceremony before every duel--the salute. I thought I
could hear the ring of steel."

Gray laughed off the suggestion. "Merely the jingle of officers' spurs,
I assure you. We amateurs cling to the Regular Army pomp and practice.
Frankly, I love it; I admire the military method--a rule for every
occasion, a rigid adherence to form, no price too high for a necessary
objective. And the army code! Ironclad and exacting! Honors difficult
and disgrace easy. One learns to set great store by both. You've no
idea, Miss Good, how precious is the one and how-hideous is the other."

"You mustn't call me Miss Good any longer," the girl told him. "My name
is Barbara Parker."

"Oh, I like that!"

"I'm more generally known as 'Bob.'"

"Even better! It sounds tomboyish."

"It's not. It is Tom Parkerish. Father insisted on calling me that
and--it stuck. He's a man's man and my being a girl was a total
surprise to him. It completely upset his plans. So I did my best to
remedy the mistake and learn to do and to take an interest in the
things he was interested in."

"Those were--?"

Miss Parker looked up from beneath her trim velvet hat and her blue
eyes were defiant. "All that people like you disapprove of; all that
you probably consider undignified and unladylike, such as riding,
roping, shooting--"

"Riding--unladylike? It's very smart. And why do you say people 'like
me'? There are no people like me."

"You know what I mean. You're not a Westerner. You are what a
cowpuncher would call a swell Easterner." Ignoring Gray's grimace of
dislike she went on, deliberately exaggerating her musical Texas drawl.
"You are a person of education and culture; you speak languages; you
have the broad 'a,' and if you had to go unshaven it would be a living
death. You are rich, too, and probably play the piano. People like that
don't admire cow-girls."

The man laughed heartily. "In spite of my broad 'a' and my safety
razor, I'm as much of a man's man as your father. Frankly, I don't
admire cowgirls, but I do admire you and everything you say about
yourself adds to that admiration. If your father is Tom Parker--well. I
congratulate you upon an admirable taste in the selection of parents."

"Do you know him?" Barbara eagerly inquired.

"No. But I know of him and I know what he stands for. I think we have
many things in common, and I venture to say that he is going to like
me."

Barbara smi