sfied with himself, but his satisfaction was tempered with
thankfulness that he was clever enough to fool that confounded girl. All
the way back to his horse he was trying to "place" the voice and the
name.

Some one within riding distance, it must be--some one visiting in the
country. He sure didn't know of any ranch girl named Venus. After awhile
he felt he could afford to grin over the incident. "Never knowed the
difference," he boasted as he rode away. "Nine men outa ten woulda
overplayed their hand, right there."

Just how far he had overplayed his hand, that man never knew. Far enough
to send Mary V to her room rather white and scared; shaking, too, with
excitement. She stood by the window, looking out at the moon-lighted yard
with its wind-beaten flowers. To save her life she could not help
recalling the story of Little Red Riding Hood, nor could she rid herself
of the odd sensation of having talked with the Wolf. Though she did not,
of course, carry the simile so far as to liken Johnny Jewel to the
Grandmother.

She did not know what to do--a strange sensation for Mary V, I assure
you. Once she got as far as the door, meaning to go out on the porch and
tell her dad that somebody was down at Sinkhole Camp pretending that he
was Johnny Jewel when he was nothing of the sort, and that the boys had
better go right straight down there and see what was the matter.

She did not get farther than the door, however, and for what would seem a
very trifling reason; she did not want her dad to know that she had been
trying to talk to Johnny over the 'phone.

She went back to the window. _Who_ was down there pretending to be Johnny
Jewel? And what, in heaven's name, was he doing it for? She remembered
the Mexican who had ridden up that day and pretended that he wanted
matches, and how he had returned to the camp almost as soon as she had
left. But the man who had talked with her was not a Mexican. No one but a
white man--and a range man, she added to herself--would say, "Uh course
I knowed yore voice." And he had not really had a cold. Mary V's ears
were sharper than her dad's, for she had caught the make-believe in the
hoarseness. She knew perfectly well that Johnny Jewel might be hoarse as
a crow and never talk that way. Johnny never said "Uh course I knowed,"
and Johnny would choke before he'd ever call her sweetheart. He wouldn't
have let that man do it, either, had Johnny been present in the cabin,
she suspected shre