men and real love for
American girls in international marriages. But Helen knows this. It'll
be her choice. She'll be miserable if she marries Anglesbury."

"It'll serve her just right," declared her brother. "Helen was always
crazy for glitter, adulation, fame. I'll gamble she never saw more of
Anglesbury than the gold and ribbons on his breast."

"I am sorry. Anglesbury is a gentleman; but it is the money he wanted, I
think. Alfred, tell me how you came to know about me, 'way out here? You
may be assured I was astonished to find that Miss Kingsley knew me as
Majesty Hammond."

"I imagine it was a surprise," he replied, with a laugh, "I told
Florence about you--gave her a picture of you. And, of course, being a
woman, she showed the picture and talked. She's in love with you. Then,
my dear sister, we do get New York papers out here occasionally, and we
can see and read. You may not be aware that you and your society friends
are objects of intense interest in the U. S. in general, and the West in
particular. The papers are full of you, and perhaps a lot of things you
never did."

"That Mr. Stewart knew, too. He said, 'You're not Majesty Hammond?'"

"Never mind his impudence!" exclaimed Alfred; and then again he laughed.
"Gene is all right, only you've got to know him. I'll tell you what he
did. He got hold of one of those newspaper pictures of you--the one
in the Times; he took it away from here, and in spite of Florence he
wouldn't fetch it back. It was a picture of you in riding-habit with
your blue-ribbon horse, White Stockings--remember? It was taken at
Newport. Well, Stewart tacked the picture up in his bunk-house and named
his beautiful horse Majesty. All the cowboys knew it. They would see
the picture and tease him unmercifully. But he didn't care. One day I
happened to drop in on him and found him just recovering from a carouse.
I saw the picture, too, and I said to him, 'Gene, if my sister knew you
were a drunkard she'd not be proud of having her picture stuck up in
your room.' Majesty, he did not touch a drop for a month, and when he
did drink again he took the picture down, and he has never put it back."

Madeline smiled at her brother's amusement, but she did not reply. She
simply could not adjust herself to these queer free Western' ways. Her
brother had eloquently pleaded for her to keep herself above a sordid
and brilliant marriage, yet he not only allowed a cowboy to keep her
picture in his room, b