ed, for the first time, an interest in the desert and a desire to
see it again.

"I'll have to go back sometime, Bob, I suppose," she said, "if it's only
to see Lolita."

"I nearly brought her up with me," he said. "I thought maybe she'd stand
it all right for a day or two; then I got afraid she'd sicken right away
in this rare air, and I didn't dare."

"I guess so," sighed Pearl; "but, goodness! I'd sure like to see her
again. I'd most give anything to hear her say, 'mi jasmin, Pearl, mi
corazon.'"

"We understand each other, you and me and Lolita," returned Flick. "We
all got the South in us, I reckon that's why."

"Maybe," she answered. "Yes, I'd like to see Lolita and mother. She
won't leave her chickens and melons and sweet potatoes and all long
enough to come up here, and, oh, there's times when I feel like I'd most
give my eyes to see the desert again; but I couldn't stand it yet, Bob,
not yet."

A shade had fallen over her face as she spoke and, to divert her, he
began to speak of Jose. "Doesn't he make you laugh?" he asked. "He keeps
everybody else on the broad grin."

"Men," she said scornfully. "I think he works a charm on you that you
all put yourselves in danger for a thing like that. Sometimes he makes
me laugh--a little; but if I had my way I would waste no time in putting
him in prison where he belongs. What is it you see in him?"

"I don't believe women do like Jose much," reflected Flick.

"Except Nitschkan," replied Pearl. "She says she's trying to reform him
and save his soul; but it mostly consists in getting him to do all the
odd jobs she can think of, and Mrs. Thomas is trying to flirt with him."

"I guess you don't like him, because you don't see him as he is,"
ruminated Bob Flick. "He's not afraid of anything; he'll take chances,
just without thinking of them, that I don't believe another man on earth
would. He's always good-natured and amusing, and look how he can cook,
Pearl," turning in his saddle, "just think of that! Why, he could take
a piece of sole leather and make it taste like venison."

But even this list of perfections failed to arouse any enthusiasm for
Jose in Pearl, or to convince her that the proper place for him was not
within the sheltering walls of a prison.

"Well, if you don't care much for Jose, how about Seagreave?" There was
a touch of anxiety in his glance as he asked this question. The jealousy
which he could never succeed in overcoming, and yet of which h