ront of them.

"Captain Jackson Cheyne, who is coming to help us. Miss Torrance and Miss
Schuyler, the daughter and guest of our leader," said Allonby, and the
soldierly man with the quiet, brown face, smiling, held out his hand.

"We are friends already," he said, and passed on with Allonby.

"Was it very dreadful, Hetty?" said Flora Schuyler. "I could see he means
to come back and talk to you."

Hetty also fancied Cheyne wished to do so, and spent the next hour or two
in avoiding the encounter. With this purpose she contrived to draw Chris
Allonby into one of the smaller rooms where the card-tables were then
untenanted, and listened with becoming patience to stories she had often
heard before. She, however, found it a little difficult to laugh at the
right places, and at last the lad glanced reproachfully at her.

"It spoils everything when one has to show you where the point is," he
said; and Hetty, looking up, saw Cheyne and Flora Schuyler in the
doorway.

"Miss Newcombe is looking for you, Mr. Allonby," said the latter.

There was very little approval in the glance Hetty bestowed upon Miss
Schuyler and Allonby seemed to understand it.

"She generally is, and that is why I'm here," he said. "I don't feel like
hearing about any more lepidoptera to-night, and you can take her Captain
Cheyne instead. He must have found out quite a lot about beetles and other
things that bite you down in Arizona."

Miss Schuyler, disregarding Hetty, laughed. "You had better go," she said.
"I see her coming in this direction now, and she has something which
apparently contains specimens in her hand."

Allonby fled, but he turned a moment in the doorway. "Do you think you
could get me a real lively tarantula, Captain Cheyne?" he said. "If a
young lady with a preoccupied manner asks you anything about insects, tell
her you have one in your pocket. It's the only thing that will save you."

He vanished with Miss Schuyler, and Hetty, somewhat against her wishes,
found herself alone with Cheyne. He was deeply sunburned, and his face
thinner than it had been, but the quiet smile she had once found pleasure
in was still in his eyes.

"Your young friend did his best, and I am half afraid he had a hint," he
said.

Hetty blushed. "I am very pleased to see you," she said hastily. "How did
you like New Mexico?"

"As well as I expected," Cheyne answered with a dry smile. "It is not
exactly an enchanting place--deformed mountains, sun g