ere!"

Her father came out on the porch.

"What do you want?" he asked irritably.

Terry came running to him, flushed with her excitement, and shoved the
glasses up to his eyes. Temple dodged, fussed with the focussing
apparatus, lowered the glasses, and blinked down the road.

"It's just a wagon, ain't it?" he demanded. "Looks like----"

Again she snatched the binoculars.

"A lot of men are standing up," she announced. "That's the team from
the Packard logging-camp, There's a man sitting on the front seat with
the driver and he's got a rag around his head. There's some sort of a
bed made in the bottom of the wagon; a man's lying down. I actually
believe, Dad Temple----"

She broke off in a strange little gasp. Behind the wagon a man rode on
horseback; the sun glinted on a revolver in his hand. They came closer.

"It's Blenham on the front seat with a bandage around his head!" she
cried. "He's hurt! And--dad, that man back there is Steve Packard!
And he's driving that crowd off his ranch, as sure as you are Jim
Temple and I'm Teresa Arriega Temple!"

Temple started.

"What's that?" he demanded with a genuine show of interest.

Together they stared down the road. On came the wagon and the rider
behind it. Slowly the look in Terry's eyes altered. In a moment they
were fairly dancing. And then, causing her father to stare at her
curiously, she broke out into peal after peal of delicious laughter.

"Steve Packard," she cried out, her exclamation meant for her own ears
alone and reaching no further than those of her newly imported Japanese
cook who was peering out of his kitchen window just behind her, "I
believe you're a white man after all! And a gentleman and a sport!
Dad, he's nabbed the whole crowd of them and put them on the run. By
glory, it looks to me like a man has turned up! Maybe he was telling
me the truth last night."

The wagon came on, drew abreast of the Temple gate, passed by. Temple
stared in what looked like consternation. Steve, following the wagon,
came abreast of the gate, stopped, watched the four horses draw their
freight around the next bend in the road, accounted his work done, and
turned toward the Temples.

"Good morning," he called cheerily, highly content with life just at
this moment. "Fine day, isn't it?"

Terry looked at him coolly. Then she turned her back and went into the
house. Iki, the new cook, looked at her wonderingly.

"To me it appears most