able, particularly inasmuch as he could have no suspicion that
it was a Ranger who was on his trail.

Dave lost the hoof-prints for a time, but picked them up again at the
pasture gate a few miles farther on, and was able to trace them far
enough to assure himself that his quarry was indeed headed for the
Austin house and had no intention of swinging southward toward the
Lewis headquarters.

By this time the rain had done its work, and to follow the tracks
became a matter of guesswork. Night was coming on also, and Dave
realized that at this rate darkness would find him far from his goal.
Therefore he risked his own interpretation of the rider's intent and
pushed on without pausing to search out the trail step by step. At the
second gate the signs indicated that his man was little more than an
hour ahead of him.

The prospect of again seeing the ruddy-haired mistress of Las Palmas
stirred Law more deeply than he cared to admit. Alaire Austin had been
seldom out of his thoughts since their first meeting, for, after the
fashion of men cut off from human society, he was subject to insistent
fancies. Dave had many times lived over those incidents at the
water-hole, and for the life of him he could not credit the common
stories of Alaire's coldness. To him, at least, she had appeared very
human, and after they had once become acquainted she had been
unaffected and friendly.

Since that meeting Dave had picked up considerable information about
the object of his interest, and although much of this was palpably
false, it had served to make her a still more romantic figure in his
eyes. Alaire now seemed to be a sort of superwoman, and the fact that
she was his friend, that something deep within her had answered to him,
afforded him a keen satisfaction, the greater, perhaps, because of his
surprise that it could be so. Nevertheless, he was uncomfortably aware
that she had a husband. Not only so, but the sharp contrast in their
positions was disagreeable to contemplate; she was unbelievably rich,
and a person of influence in the state, while he had nothing except his
health, his saddle, and his horse---

With a desperate pang Law realized that now he had no horse. Bessie
Belle, his best beloved, lay cold and wet back yonder in the weeping
mesquite. He found several cubes of sugar in his pocket, and with an
oath flung them from him. Don Ricardo's horse seemed stiff-gaited and
stubborn.

Dave remembered how Mrs. Austin had a