ingly interrupted. Either Mrs. Gallito, or
Hughie, or some of the visitors would join them and Hanson realized that
his opportunities for speech with Pearl were becoming increasingly rare.

The only times when he could really see her alone were on the occasions
of some morning rides together, which they had begun to take.

As for her, she was still repelling, still alluring, still drawing him
on, but how much of it was a game which she played both by nature and
practice with consummate skill, or how much he might have caught her
fancy or touched her heart, he had no way of determining, and this
tormented him and yet daily, hourly, heightened his infatuation.

And he was still further goaded by the knowledge that he was, in a
measure, under surveillance, which he was sure was instituted by Gallito
and Flick and connived at by Hughie; a watchfulness so subtle that it
convinced him even while he doubted. He felt often as if he were stalked
by some stealthy and implacable animal. This situation, imaginary or
real, began to affect his nerves and he would undoubtedly have left had
it not been for his mounting passion for Pearl, a passion fanned always
to a more ardent flame by her tantalizing coquetries.

Then, too, he felt that, although Bob Flick and Gallito had probably
acquired some information about himself which he would gladly have
withheld, still they did not hold all the winning cards. The ace of
trumps, as he exultantly told himself, is bound to take any trick, and
the ace of trumps he felt that he possessed in the information which
Mrs. Gallito had so obligingly furnished him. In other words, his ace
was Crop-eared Jose, and his ace was not destined to be unsupported by
other trump cards.

Only the evening before, he and Mrs. Gallito had sat alone for a few
moments on the porch gazing out over the wonder and glory of the desert
flooded in moonlight, and the patient, flattering interest with which he
invariably received her confidences had gained its reward, for she had
leaned toward him and whispered with many cautious backward glances:

"He's up there in the mountains yet."

"Who?" asked Hanson, attempting to conceal his eagerness under an air of
mystification.

"Crop-eared Jose," she answered, "and Gallito's going to keep him there
for several months yet."

"Is he?" and again Hanson strove to speak with disarming indifference.
"How do you know?"

"I heard him and Bob Flick planning it," she answered. "