ng, a generous lunch of sandwiches and cake and
sour pickles, a box-magazine .22 rifle, a knife, a tube of cold cream
wrapped in a bit of cheesecloth, and a very compact yet very complete
vanity case. Jostling the vanity case in her saddle pocket were two boxes
of soft-nose, .22-long cartridges for the rifle. Furthermore, for special
personal protection she had an extremely businesslike six-shooter which
she carried in a shoulder holster under her riding shirt; a concession to
her father, who had made her promise never to ride away from the ranch
without it.

For apparel Mary V wore a checked riding coat and breeches, together with
black puttees. The suit had grown a bit shabby for Los Angeles, and Mary
V's mother believed that town cast-offs should be worn out on the ranch.
Mary V did not mind. She hated the cumbersome riding skirts of the range
girl proper, and much preferred the breeches. When she had put a little
distance between herself and the ranch, she usually removed the coat and
tied it in a roll behind the cantle. She looked then like a slim boy--or
she would have, except for the hat. Mary V cherished her complexion,
which Arizona sun and winds would have burned a brick red. In cool
weather she wore a Stetson like the boys; but now she favored a great,
straw sombrero such as you see section hands wear along the railroad
track in Arizona. To keep it on her head in the winds she had resorted to
tying a ribbon down over the brim from the front of the crown to the nape
of her neck; and tying another ribbon from the back of the crown down
under her chin. Thus doubly anchored, and skewered with two hatpins
besides, the hat might be counted upon to give Mary V no trouble, but a
great deal of protection. Worn with the checked riding breeches and the
heavy, black puttees, it was not particularly becoming, but Mary V did
not expect to meet many pairs of critical eyes. Rolling R boys were too
much like home folks to bother about, having been accustomed to seeing
Mary V in strange and various guises since she was a tiny tot.

Southward she rode, and as swiftly as was wise if she valued the
well-being of her horse. Movies will have it that nothing short of a
gallop is tolerated by riders in the West; whereas Mary V had been taught
from her childhood up that she must never "run" her horse unless there
was need of it. She therefore contented herself with ambling along the
trail at a distance-devouring trail-trot, slowing he