slowly brightening
eyes. "An' safe, Miss Hammond."

"My sister used to like fast riding. If I remember correctly, all of
my guests were a little afflicted with the speed mania. It is a common
disease with New-Yorkers. I hope, Stevens, that you will not give them
reason to think we are altogether steeped in the slow, dreamy manana
languor of the Southwest."

Link doubtfully eyed her, and then his bronze face changed its dark
aspect and seemed to shine.

"Beggin' your pardon, Miss Hammond, thet's shore tall talk fer Link
Stevens to savvy. You mean--as long as I drive careful an' safe I can
run away from my dust, so to say, an' get here in somethin' less than
the Greaser's to-morrow?"

Madeline had laughed her assent. And now, as she watched the thin
streak of dust, at that distance moving with snail pace, she reproached
herself. She trusted Stevens; she had never known so skilful, daring,
and iron-nerved a driver as he was. If she had been in the car herself
she would have had no anxiety. But, imagining what Stevens would do on
forty miles and more of that desert road, Madeline suffered a prick of
conscience.

"Oh, Stillwell!" she exclaimed. "I am afraid I will go back on my
wonderful idea. What made me do it?"

"Your sister wanted the real thing, didn't she? Said they all wanted it.
Wal, I reckon they've begun gettin' it," replied Stillwell.

That statement from the cattleman allayed Madeline's pangs of
conscience. She understood just what she felt, though she could not have
put it in words. She was hungry for a sight of well-remembered faces;
she longed to hear the soft laughter and gay repartee of old
friends; she was eager for gossipy first-hand news of her old world.
Nevertheless, something in her sister's letter, in messages from the
others who were coming, had touched Madeline's pride. In one sense the
expected guests were hostile, inasmuch as they were scornful and curious
about the West that had claimed her. She imagined what they would
expect in a Western ranch. They would surely get the real thing, too, as
Stillwell said; and in that certainty was satisfaction for a small grain
of something within Madeline which approached resentment. She wistfully
wondered, however, if her sister or friends would come to see the West
even a little as she saw it. That, perhaps, would he hoping too much.
She resolved once for all to do her best to give them the sensation
their senses craved, and equally to show them the