I came out here to be alone and
to think and watch."

"And your father?"

"He's attending the wounded Mexicans in the store."

Steel alighted and tossing his hat upon the car seat gazed out over
the mesa, misty in the moonlight.

"There will be no more trouble," said he. "Sorenson and Burkhardt are
Madden's prisoners, and on their way to a place of safe-keeping in
another county. Vorse is dead. The people in town have a fairly good
understanding of matters now, I think."

"How in the world did such a change of opinion occur?" Janet
exclaimed.

"I had a little talk with the crowd and made explanations. The feeling
for me was almost friendly when I left; what enmity remains will soon
die out, I'm sure."

Though unaware from Steele Weir's laconic statement of what had
actually occurred, the girl divined that his words concealed vastly
more than their surface purport. With the general hostility against
the engineer that had existed, for him to swing the community to his
side meant a dramatic moment and a remarkable moral conquest.

"Your friends have always known you would win," she said, smiling up
at him.

He seated himself on the rock beside her.

"It's but a short time ago, Janet, that I had no friends, or so
few they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Business
acquaintances, yes. Professional companions, yes. Men who perhaps
respected my ability as an engineer, yes. But real friends, scarcely
one. And now I think I have gained some, which is the greatest
satisfaction I have from all that has happened. After years the
pendulum has swung to my side. Do you know the hour my luck changed?"

Janet shook her head wonderingly.

"No, I can't even guess," said she.

"Well, it was that afternoon, and that moment, I found you sitting in
your stalled car in the creek down there. That was the beginning. From
that time things began to run in my favor and they haven't ceased to
do so for a moment since, I now see looking back over events. You
brought good luck to me that day in your car."

"What an extraordinary idea! Then at bottom you're superstitious,"
Janet replied. "I shall have to give you a new name; I must no longer
call you 'Cold Steel.'"

"I really never liked that name," Weir said quickly. "Perhaps I was
cold steel once, but I have changed along with everything else. And
you're responsible for that too."

Janet leaned forward and looked into his eyes.

"You were never truly harsh to any o