tin' carries your share. I
knew you were sure to find the sheepskin map sooner or later," he lied
glibly, "but luck didn't favor me hanging around for it. I had to get
it while the getting was good, but we three are partners for keeps,
Buntin' is yours, and I'll divide with Pike out of the rest."

Billie touched the pack, tried to lift it, and stared.

"You're crazy, Kit Rhodes!"

"Too bad you've picked a crazy man to marry!" he laughed, and took off
the pack. "Seventy-five pounds in that. I've over three hundred.
Lark-child, if you remember the worth of gold per ounce, I reckon
you'll see that there won't need to be any delay in clearing off the
ranch debts,--not such as you would notice! and maybe I might qualify
as a ranch hand when I come back,--even if I couldn't hold the job the
first time."

"O Kit! O Cap! O me!" she whispered chantingly. "Don't you dare wake
me up, for I'm having the dream of my life!"

But he caught her, drew her close and kissed her hair rumpled in the
desert wind.

And as the wagon drew into the circle of light, that was the picture
Dona Jocasta saw from the shadows of the covered wagon:--young love,
radiant and unashamed!

She stared at them a moment strangely in a sudden mist of tears, as
Clodomiro jumped down and arranged for her to alight. Cap Pike looking
up, all but dropped the coffeepot.

"Some little collector--that boy!" he muttered, and then aloud, "You
_Kit_!"

Kit turned and came forward leading Billie, who suddenly developed
panic at vision of the most beautiful, tragic face she had ever seen.

"Some collector!" murmured Cap Pike forgetting culinary operations to
stare. "Shades of Sheba's queen!"

But Kit, whose days and nights of Mesa Blanca and Soledad had rather
unfitted him for hasty adjustments to conventions, or standardized
suspicion regarding the predatory male, held the little hand of Billie
very tightly, and did not notice her gasp of amazement. He went
forward to assist Dona Jocasta, whose hesitating half glance about her
only enhanced the wonder of jewel-green eyes whose beauty had been
theme of many a Mexic ballad.

For these were the first Americanos she had ever met, and it was said
in the south that Americanos might be wild barbaros,--though the senor
of the songs----

The senor of the songs reached his hand and made his best bow as he
noted her sudden shrinking.

"Here, Dona Jocasta, are friends of good heart. We are now on the edge
of the lan